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http://www.archive.org/details/bookofchristmasOOherviala 


Christmas  and  His  Children. 


BOSTON  : 
ROBERTS    BROTHERS. 


THE 


Book  of  Christmas; 


DESCRIPTIVE   OF   THE 


CUSTOMS,    CEREMONIES,   TRADITIONS, 
SUPERSTITIONS,  FUN,  FEELING,  AND  FESTIVITIES  OF 

By    THOMAS    K.    HERVEY. 

WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS     BY    R.    SEYMOUR. 


Galatifee  Show. 


BOSTON: 

ROBERTS    BROTHERS. 

1888. 


Snibrrsitg  ISrrss: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Introductory  Chapter    7 

fart  /irst. 

The  Christmas  Season 29 

Alingled  Origin  of  the  Christmas  Festival ;  Good  Cheer 
of  the  Ancient  Festival ;  Court  Celebrations  of  Christ- 
mas ;  Celebrations  at  the  Inns  of  Court;  Lord  of 
Misrule  and  Christmas  Prince ;  Abbot  of  Unreason  ; 
Influence  of  the  Festival  on  the  Social  Relations  ;  Ben 
Jonson's  Masque  of  Christmas ;  Father  Christmas 
summoning  his  Spirits ;  Extinction  of  the  Ancient 
Festival ;  Partial  Revival ;  Summary  of  the  Causes  of 
its  final  Decline. 

Feelings  of  the  Season 134 

Religious  Influences ;  Assembling  of  Friends ;  Church 
Services  of  the  Season  ;  lengthened  Duration  of  the 
Festival ;  Memories  of  the  Season  ;  Natural  Aspects  of 
the  Season. 

Signs  of  the  Season 157 

Domestic  Preparations ;  Mince  Pie ;  Travellers  on  the 
Highways  ;  coming  Home  from  School ;  Norfolk  Coach  ; 
Evergreens  for  Christmas  Decoration  ;  Kissing  under 
the  Mistletoe;  Christmas  Minstrelsy;  Waits;  Carol 
Singing  ;  Christmas  Carols  ;  Annual  Carol  Sheets ; 
London  Carol  Singers;   Bellman. 

Part  ^ecottb. 

The  Christmas  Days 223 

St.  Thomas's  Day 225 

Various  Country  Customs  on  this  day;  St.  Thomas's 
Day  in  London ;  City  Parochial  Elections ;  Lumber 
Troop  and  other  City  Associations. 


IV  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Sports  of  this  Season 233 

Ancient  Jugglers;  Galantee  Show;  Card  Playing;  An- 
cient Bards  and  Harpers  ;  Modern  Story-telling  and 
Music ;  out-door  Sports  of  the  Season ;  Theatre  and 
Pantomime  ;  Mummers  ;  Play  of  St.  George. 

Christmas  Eve 267 

London  Markets  on  Christmas  Eve;  the  Yule-clog; 
Christmas  Candles  ;  Wassail  Bowl ;  Omens  and  Super- 
stitions ;  Old  Christmas  Eve ;  Midnight  Mass. 

Christmas  Day 285 

Religious  Services ;  Plum  Pudding ;  Charities  of  the 
Season;  Old  English  Gentleman.;  Ancient  Baronial 
Hall ;  Bringing  in  the  Boar's  Head ;  Modern  Christ- 
mas Dmner. 

St.  Stephen's  Day 302 

Boxing  Day  (origin  of  the  name) ;  Christmas-boxes  ; 
Christmas  Pieces ;  Hunting  the  Wren  (Isle  of  Man) ; 
Droleens,  or  Wren  Boys  ( Ireland) ;  Greek  Songs  of 
the  Crow  and  Swallow. 

New  Year's  Eve 315 

Scottish  Observances;  Night  of  Omens;  Hogmanay; 
Seeing-in  the  New  Year. 

New  Year's  Day 335 

Morning  Congratulations  ;  New-Year's  Gifts. 

Twelfth  Day  and  Twelfth  Night 339 

Observances  on  the  Virgil  of  the  Epiphany  ;  Humors  of 
the  Street;  Twelfth  Night  Party;  Twelfth  Cake; 
Drawing  for  Characters  ;  Three  Kings  of  Cologne. 

Saint  Distaff's  Day 351 

Rustic  Sports. 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

Christmas  and  his  Children      ....     Frontispiece 

The  Book  of  Christmas Titlepage 

"  Merry  Christmas  to  you  " -  29 

Snap-dragon 31 

Baronial  Hall 42 

Enjoying  Christmas 46 

Mummers 65 

Gate  ok  the  "Old  English  Gentleman"      .    .  icg 

Family  Congratulation 134 

Country  Carol  Singers 157 

Coming  Home  from  School 163 

Norfolk  Coach  at  Christmas 170 

Too  late  for  the  Coach 172 

Bringing  Home  Christmas 173 

The  Mistletoe  Bough 191 

Waits I97 

London  Carol  Singers 215 

Bell-Ringing 219 


VI  LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

The  Lord  of  Misrule 223 

Christmas  Presents 224 

St.  Thomas's  Day •  .     .     .    .  233 

Story  Telling 239 

Christmas  Pantomime 249 

Galantee  Show       266 

Market  —  Christmas  Eve 267 

Wassail  Bowl 275 

Old  Christmas 285 

Christmas  Pudding 286 

Country  Church,  Christmas  Morning.    .    .    .  290 

Bringing  in  the  Boar's  Head 295 

Christmas  Dinner 300 

Boxing  Day 302 

Seeing-in  the  New  Year 331 

Twelfth  Night  King 339 

Twelfth  Night  in  London  Streets 343 

Twelfth  Night 347 

Returning  to  School 355 


THE 


BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER. 

We  take  no  note  of  time 
But  from  its  loss ;  to  give  it,  then,  a  tongue 
Is  wise  in  man. 

Dr.  Youxg. 

To  give  a  language  to  time,  for  the  preservation  of 
its  records  and  the  utterance  of  its  lessons,  has  been 
amongst  the  occupations  of  man  from  the  day  when 
first  he  found  himself  in  its  mysterious  presence 
down  to  these  latter  ages  of  the  world ;  and  yet, 
all  the  resources  of  his  ingenuity,  impelled  by  all 
the  aspirations  of  his  heart,  have  only  succeeded 
in  supplying  it  with  an  imperfect  series  of  hiero- 
glyphics, difficult  in  their  acquirement  and  uncertain 
in  their  use.  Ages  upon  ages  of  the  young  world 
have  passed  away,  of  which  the  old  hath  no  chron- 
icle. Generations  after  generations  of  men  have 
"  made  their  bed  in  the  darkness,"  and  left  no 
monuments.  Of  the  crowded  memorials  reared  by 
others  along  the  stream  of  time,  many  (and  those 


8  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

the  mightiest)  are  written  in  a  cipher  of  which 
the  key  is  lost.  The  wrappings  of  the  mummy  are 
letters  of  a  dead  language  ;  and  no  man  can  trans- 
late the  ancient  story  of  the  pyramid  ! 

We  have  learnt  to  speak  of  time,  because  it  is 
that  portion  of  eternity  with  which  we  have  presently 
to  do,  —  as  if  it  were  a  whit  more  intelligible  (less 
vague,  abstract,  and  unimaginable)  than  that  eter- 
nity of  which  it  is  a  part.  He  who  can  conceive  of 
the  one,  must  be  able  to  embrace  the  awful  image 
of  the  other.  We  think  of  time  as  of  a  section 
of  eternity,  separated  and  intrenched  by  absolute 
limits ;  and  thus  we  seem  to  have  arrived  at  a 
definite  idea,  surrounded  by  points  on  which  the 
mind  can  rest.  But  when  the  imagination  sets  out 
upon  the  actual  experiment,  and  discovers  that 
those  limits  are  not  assignable,  save  on  one  only 
side,  and  finds  but  a  single  point  on  which  to  rest 
its  failing  wing,  and  looks  from  thence  along  an 
expanse  whose  boundaries  are  nowhere  else  within 
the  range  of  its  restricted  vision,  —  then  does  the 
mortal  bird  return  into  its  mortal  nest,  wearied  with 
its  ineffectual  flight,  and  convinced  that  a  shoreless 
ocean  and  one  whose  shores  it  cannot  see  are  alike 
formless  and  mysterious  to  its  dim  and  feeble  gaze. 

And  yet  notwithstanding  the  connection  of  these 
two  ideas,  —  of  time  and  of  eternity, —  (the  notion 
of  the  former  being  only  reached  through  the  latter) 
we  deal  familiarly,  and  even  jestingly,  with  the 
one,  while   the   mind  approaches   the   other   with 


INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER.  9 

reverential  awe.  Types,  and  symbols,  and  emblems 
—  and  those  ever  of  a  grave  meaning  —  are  the 
most  palpable  expressions  which  we  venture  to  give 
to  our  conceptions  of  the  one  ;  whilst  the  other  we 
figure  and  personify,  —  and  that,  too  often,  after 
a  fashion  in  which  the  better  part  of  the  moral  is 
left  unrepresented.  Yet  who  shall  personify  time  ? 
And  who  that  has  ever  tried  it,  in  the  silence  of  his 
chamber  and  the  stillness  of  his  heart,  hath  not 
bowed  down  in  breathless  awe  before  the  solemn 
visions  which  his  conjuration  has  awakened?  Oh, 
the  mysterious  shapes  which  Time  takes,  when  it 
rises  up  into  the  mind  as  an  image,  at  those  hours 
of  lonely  inquisition!  —  "And  he  said  unto  her, 
'  What  form  is  he  of  ?  '  And  she  said,  '  An  old  man 
Cometh  up  ;  and  he  is  covered  with  a  mantle!'  "  — 
The  mysterious  presence  which  it  assumes  "  in 
thoughts  from  the  visions  of  the  night,  when  deep 
sleep  falleth  on  men  "  !  Who,  as  he  strove  to  col- 
lect the  mournful  attributes  about  which  his  fancy 
had  been  busy  into  an  impersonation,  hath  not 
suddenly  felt  as  if  "  a  spirit  passed  before  Als  face  ! 
...  It  stood  still,  but  he  could  not  discern  the  form 
thereof;  an  image  was  before  his  eyes,  there  was  si- 
lence ; "  and  out  of  that  silence  hath  seemed  to  come 
a  voice  like  that  which  whispered  to  Job,  ''  They 
that  dwell  in  houses  of  clay,  whose  foundation  is  in 
the  dust,  which  are  crushed  before  the  moth,  they 
are  destroyed  from  morning  to  evening ;  they  perish 
for  ever,  without  any  regarding  it." 


lO  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

Time,  abstractedly  considered  as  what  in  truth 
it  is,  —  a  portion  of  the  vast  ocean  of  eternity,  a 
river  flowing  from  the  sea  and  flowing  to  the  sea, 
a  channel  leading  from  deep  to  deep,  through  shores 
on  which  the  races  of  the  world  are  permitted  to 
build  for  awhile,  until  the  great  waters  shall  once 
more  cover  all,  and  time,  as  time,  "  shall  be  no 
more,"  —  must  long  have  defied  the  skill  of  man  to 
map  out  its  surface,  and  write  his  memorials  upon 
its  impalpable  bosom.  The  thousand  keels  that 
sweep  over  the  visible  waters  of  the  world  leave  on 
their  face  traces  of  their  passage  more  legible  and 
enduring  than  do  the  generations  of  men  as  they 
come  and  go  on  that  viewless  and  voiceless  stream. 
The  ingenuity  which  has  taught  man  to  lay  down 
the  plan  of  the  material  ocean,  to  assign  to  each 
spot  on  its  uniform  surface  its  positive  whereabout 
and  actual  relation,  and  by  a  series  of  imaginary 
lines  and  figures  to  steer  his  way  across  its  pathless 
solitudes  with  a  knowledge  as  certain  as  that  which 
guides  him  amidst  the  substantive  and  distinctive 
features  of  the  solid  earth,  is  scarcely  more  admir- 
able than  that  which,  by  a  similar  device,  has  en- 
abled him  to  measure  out  the  expanse  of  the  silent 
river,  to  cover,  as  it  were,  its  surface  with  a  crowd 
of  imaginary  latitudes  and  longitudes  intersecting 
each  other  at  all  points,  and  to  ascertain  at  any 
moment,  by  observation,  his  relative  position  on  the 
great  stream  of  time. 

How  long  the  unaided  genius  of  man  might  have 


INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER.  II 

been  ere  it  could  have  fallen  upon  a  scheme  for  the 
one  achievement  or  the  other,  if  left  to  struggle  with 
its  own  resources  and  unassisted  by  hints  from  with- 
out, we  need  not  conjecture.  But  in  each  case  the 
solution  of  the  problem  was  suggested  to  him,  as  the 
materials  for  working  it  are  still  furnished,  by  the  fin- 
ger of  God  himself.  The  great  architect  of  the  uni- 
verse hath  planted  in  its  frame  all  necessary  models 
and  materials  for  the  guidance  and  use  of  its  human 
inhabitants,  leaving  them  to  the  exercise  of  those 
powers  and  capacities  with  which  they  have  been 
furnished  to  improve  the  lessons  and  apply  the  ex- 
amples thus  conveyed.  In  each  of  the  cases  of  which 
we  have  spoken,  the  constellations  which  surround 
the  world  and  "  are  the  poetry  of  heaven  "  have  been 
the  sources  of  the  inspiration,  as  they  are  still  the 
lights  by  which  that  inspiration  works.  The  hand 
that  fashioned  the  "  two  great  lights,"  and  appointed 
to  them  their  courses,  and  gave  them  to  be  "for  signs 
and  for  seasons  and  for  days  and  years,"  pointed  out 
to  man  how  he  might,  by  the  observation  of  their  rev- 
olutions, direct  his  course  along  the  unbroken  stream 
of  time  or  count  its  waves  as  they  flowed  silently  and 
ceaselessly  away.  The  sun  and  moon  were  the  an- 
cient and  at  first  the  only  measures  of  time,  as 
they  are  the  essential  foundations  of  all  the  modes 
by  which  man  measures  it  now ;  and  in  the  order  of 
the  world's  architecture,  the  "  watches  of  the  ele- 
ment "  which  guide  us  yet  were  framed  and  "  set 
in  the  firmament  of  heaven"  at  that  distant  and 


12  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

uncertain  period  whose  "  evening  and  morning  were 
the  fourth  day." 

Nor  did  the  beneficent  power  which  erected  these 
great  meters  of  time  in  the  constitution  of  the 
universe  leave  the  world  without  suggestions  how 
their  use  might  be  improved  in  the  business  of 
more  minute  subdivision.  The  thousand  natural 
inequalities  of  the  earth's  surface,  and  the  vegetable 
columns  which  spring  from  its  bosom,  furnish  —  as 
do  the  spires  and  towers  and  columns  which  man 
rears  thereon  —  so  many  gnomons  of  the  vast  dial, 
on  which  are  unerringly  written  with  the  finger  of 
shadow  the  shining  records  of  the  sky.  There  is 
something  unutterably  solemn  in  watching  the 
shade  creep,  day  by  day,  round  a  circle  whose 
diameter  man  might  measure  with  his  grave  or 
even  cover  with  his  hand,  and  contrasting  the  limits 
within  which  it  acts  with  the  spaces  of  time  which 
its  stealing  tread  measures  out,  and  feeling  that  it 
is  the  faithful  index  of  a  progress  before  which  the 
individual  being  and  the  universal  frame  of  things 
are  alike  hastening  to  rapid  and  inevitable  decay. 
There  are  few  types  more  awfully  representative  of 
that  which  they  typify  than  is  the  shadow.  It  is  Time 
almost  made  visible.  Through  it  the  mind  reaches 
the  most  vivid  impersonation  of  that  mysterious  idea 
which  it  is  capable  of  containing.  It  seems  as  if 
flung  directly  from  his  present  and  passing  wing. 
The  silent  and  ceaseless  motion — gliding  for  ever  on 
and  on,  coming  round  again  and  again,  but  revert- 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER.  13 

ing  never  and  tarrying  never,  blotting  out  tlie  sun- 
shine as  it  passes  and  leaving  no  trace  where  it  has 
passed  —  make  it  the  true  and  solemn  symbol  of  him 
(the  old  unresting  and  unreturning  one)  who  re- 
ceded not,  even  when  that  same  shadow  went  back 
on  the  dial  of  the  king  of  Judah,  nor  paused  when 
the  sun  stood  still  in  the  midst  of  heaven  and  the 
moon  lingered  over  the  valley  of  Ajalon  !  Of  that 
mysterious  type  and  its  awful  morals  a  lost  friend 
of  ours^  has  already  spoken  better  than  we  can 
hope  to  speak ;  and  as  he  is  ("alas,  that  he  is  so  ! ") 
already  one  whose  "  sun  shall  no  more  go  down, 
neither  shall  his  moon  withdraw  itself,"  we  will 
avail  ourselves  of  a  language  which  deserves  to  be 
better  known,  and  sounds  all  the  more  solemnly 
that  he  who  uttered  it  hath  since  furnished  in  his 
own  person  a  fresh  verification  of  the  solemn  truths 
which  he  sung  so  well. 

"  Upon  a  dial-stone, 
Behold  the  shade  of  Time, 
For  ever  circling  on  and  on 
In  silence  more  sublime 
Than  if  the  thunders  of  the  spheres 
Pealed  forth  its  march  to  mortal  ears ! 

"  It  meets  us  hour  by  hour, 
Doles  out  our  little  span, 
Reveals  a  presence  and  a  power 
Felt  and  confessed  by  man  ; 
The  drop  of  moments,  day  by  day, 
That  rocks  of  ages  wears  away. 

1  The  late  John  Malcolm,  of  Edinburgh. 


14  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

"  Woven  by  a  hand  unseen 
Upon  that  stone,  survey 
A  robe  of  dark  sepulchral  green, 
The  mantle  of  decay, 
The  fold  of  chill  oblivion's  pall. 
That  falleth  with  yon  shadow's  fall ! 

"  Day  is  the  time  for  toil, 
Night  balms  the  weary  breast, 
Stars  have  their  vigils,  seas  awhile 
Will  sink  to  peaceful  rest; 
But  round  and  round  the  shadow  creeps 
Of  that  which  slumbers  not,  nor  sleeps ! 

"  Effacing  all  that 's  fair. 
Hushing  the  voice  of  mirth 
Into  the  silence  of  despair. 
Around  the  lonesome  hearth, 
And  training  ivy-garlands  green 
O'er  the  once  gay  and  social  scene. 

"  In  beauty  fading  fast 
Its  silent  trace  appears, 
And  where  —  a  phantom  of  the  past. 
Dim  in  the  mist  of  years  — 
Gleams  Tadmor  o'er  oblivion's  waves. 
Like  wrecks  above  their  ocean-graves. 

"  Before  the  ceaseless  shade 
That  round  the  world  doth  sail 
Its  towers  and  temples  bow  the  head, 
The  pyramids  look  pale. 
The  festal  halls  grow  hushed  and  cold, 
The  everlasting  hills  wax  old ! 

"  Coeval  with  the  sun 
Its  silent  course  began. 
And  still  its  phantom-race  shall  run. 
Till  worlds  with  age  grow  wan. 
Till  darkness  spread  her  funeral  pall, 
And  one  vast  shadow  circle  all !  " 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER.  15 

To  the  great  natural  divisions  of  time  (with  their 
aid,  and  guided  by  these  hints)  the  ingenuity  of 
man,  under  the  direction  of  his  wants,  has  been 
busy  since  the  world  began  in  adding  artificial 
ones,  while  his  heart  has  been  active  in  supplying 
impulses  and  furnishing  devices  to  that  end.  Years, 
and  months,  and  days  —  the  periods  marked  out 
by  the  revolutions  of  our  celestial  guides  —  have 
been  aggregated  and  divided  after  methods  almost 
as  various  as  the  nations  of  the  earth.  Years  have 
been  composed  into  cycles  and  olympiads  and 
generations  and  reigns,  and  months  resolved  into 
decades  and  weeks,  days  into  hours,  and  hours 
into  subdivisions  which  have  been  again  subdivided 
almost  to  the  confines  of  thought.  Yet  it  is  only  in 
these  latter  ages  of  the  world  that  a  measurement 
has  been  attained,  at  once  so  minute  and  so  closely 
harmonizing  with  the  motions  and  regulated  by  the 
revolutions  of  the  dials  of  the  sky,  that,  had  the 
same  machinery  existed  from  the  commencement 
of  time,  —  with  the  art  of  printing  to  preserve  its  re- 
sults, —  the  history  of  the  past  might  be  perused, 
with  its  discrepancies  reconciled  and  many  of  its 
blanks  supplied.  And  could  the  world  agree  upon 
its  uniform  adoption  now,  together  with  that  of  a 
common  epoch  to  reckon  from,  comparative  chro- 
nology would  be  no  longer  a  science  applicable  to 
the  future  ;  and  history,  for  the  time  to  come  (in  so 
far  as  it  is  a  mere  record  of  facts),  would  present  few 
problems  but  such  as  ''  he  who  runs  may  read." 


l6  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

But  out  of  these  conventional  and  multiplied  divi- 
sions of  time,  these  wheels  within  the  great  wheel, 
arise  results  far  more  important  than  the  verifica- 
tion of  a  chronological  series  or  the  establishment 
of  the  harmonies  of  history.  Through  them  not 
only  may  the  ages  of  the  world  be  said  to  intercom- 
municate, and  the  ends  of  the  earth  in  a  sense  to 
meet,  but  by  their  aid  the  whole  business  of  the 
life  of  nations  and  of  individuals  is  regulated,  and 
a  set  of  mnemonics  established  upon  which  hinges 
the  history  of  the  human  heart.  By  the  multiplied 
but  regular  system  of  recurrences  thus  obtained, 
order  is  made  to  arise  out  of  the  web  of  duties  and 
the  chaos  of  events  ;  and  at  each  of  the  thousand 
points  marked  out  on  these  concentric  circles  are 
written  their  a])propriate  duties  and  recorded  their 
special  memories.  The  calendar  of  every  country  is 
thus  covered  over  with  a  series  of  events  whose  rec- 
ollection is  recalled  and  influence  kept  alive  by  the 
return  of  the  cycles,  in  their  ceaseless  revolution, 
to  those  spots  at  which  the  record  of  each  has  been 
written ;  and  acts  of  fasting  or  of  festival,  of  social 
obligation  or  of  moral  observance,  —  many  of  which 
would  be  surely  lost  or  overlooked,  amidst  the  inex- 
tricable confusion  in  which,  without  this  systematic 
arrangement  they  must  be  mingled,  —  are  severally 
pointed  out  by  the  moving  finger  of  Time  as  he 
periodically  reaches  the  place  of  each  on  his  con- 
centric dials. 

But  besides  the  calendar  of  general  direction  and 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER.  I  7 

national  observance,  where  is  the  heart  that  has  not 
a  private  calendar  of  its  own?  Long  ere  the  merid- 
ian of  life  has  been  attained,  the  individual  man 
has  made  many  a  memorandum  of  joy  or  pain  for 
his  periodical  perusal,  and  established  many  a 
private  celebration,  pleasant  or  mournful,  of  his 
own.  How  many  a  lost  hope  and  blighted  feeling 
which  the  heart  is  the  better  for  recalling,  and  would 
not  willingly  forget,  would  pass  from  the  mind  amid 
the  crowd  and  noise  and  bustle  of  the  world,  but 
for  these  tablets  on  which  it  is  ineffaceably  written 
and  yearly  read  !  How  many  an  act  of  memory, 
with  its  store  of  consolations  and  its  treasure  of 
warnings,  would  remain  postponed,  amid  the  inter- 
ests of  the  present,  till  it  came  to  be  forgotten  al- 
together, but  for  that  system  which  has  marked  its 
positive  place  upon  the  wheels  of  time,  and  brings 
the  record  certainly  before  the  mental  eye,  in  tlieir 
unvarying  revolution  !  Many  are  the  uses  of  these 
diaries  of  the  heart.  By  their  aid  something  is 
saved  from  the  wrecks  of  the  past  for  the  service  of 
the  present;  the  lights  of  former  days  are  made 
to  throw  pleasant  reflections  upon  many  an  after 
period  of  life ;  the  weeds  which  the  world  and  its 
cares  had  fostered  ai*e  again  and  again  cleared 
away  from  the  sweet  and  wholesome  fountain  of 
tears ;  the  fading  inscriptions  of  other  years  are 
renewed,  to  yield  their  morals  to  the  future  ;  and 
the  dead  are  restored,  for  a  fleeting  hour  of  sweet 
communion,  or  hold  high  and  solemn  converse  with 
2 


l8  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

US  from  the  graves  in   which  we  laid  them  years 
ago. 

And  this  result  of  the  minute  and. accurate  par- 
titions of  time,  which  consists  in  the  estabhshment 
of  a  series  of  points  for  periodic  celebration,  is,  as 
regards  its  public  and  social  operation,  more  impor- 
tant than  may  at  first  sight  appear.  The  calendar 
of  almost  every  country  is,  as  we  have  observed, 
filled  with  a  series  of  anniversaries,  religious  or 
secular,  of  festival  or  abstinence,  or  instituted  for 
the  regulation  of  business  or  the  operations  of 
the  law.  In  England,  independently  of  those  pe- 
riods of  observance  which  are  common  to  the  realm 
and  written  in  her  calendar,  there  are  few  districts 
which  are  without  some  festival  peculiar  to  them- 
selves, originating  in  the  grant  of  some  local  char- 
ter or  privilege,  the  establishment  of  some  local  fair, 
the  influence  of  some  ancient  local  superstition, 
or  some  other  cause,  of  which,  in  many  cases,  the 
sole  remaining  trace  is  the  observance  to  which  it 
has  given  rise,  —  and  which  obseivance  does  not  al- 
ways speak  in  language  sufficiently  clear  to  give  any 
account  of  its  parent.  Around  each  of  these  cele- 
brations has  grown  up  a  set  of  customs  and  tradi- 
tions and  habits,  the  examination  into  which  has 
led  to  many  a  useful  result,  and  which  are  for  the 
most  part  worth  preserving,  as  well  for  their  pictu- 
resque aspect  and  social  character  as  for  the  sake  of 
the  historic  chambers  which  they  may  yet  help  us 
to  explore.     Their  close  resemblance,  as   existing 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER.  19 

amongst  different  nations,  has  formed  an  element 
in  the  solution  of  more  than  one  problem  which 
had  for  its  object  a  chapter  of  the  history  of  the 
world  ;  and  they  may  be  said,  in  many  cases,  to 
furnish  an  apparent  link  of  connection  between 
generations  of  men  long  divided  and  dwelling  far 
apart.  They  form,  too,  amid  the  changes  which 
time  is  perpetually  effecting  in  the  structure  of  so- 
ciety, a  chain  of  connection  between  the  present 
and  former  times  of  the  same  land,  and  prevent 
the  national  individuality  from  being  wholly  de- 
stroyed. They  tend  to  preserve  some  similarity  in 
the  moral  aspect  of  a  country  from  epoch  to  epoch, 
and,  without  having  force  enough  to  act  as  drags 
on  the  progress  of  society  towards  improvement, 
they  serve  for  a  feature  of  identification  amid  all  its 
forms.  Curious  illustrations  they  are.  too,  of  na- 
tional history ;  and  we  learn  to  have  confidence  in 
its  records  when  we  find  in  some  obscure  nook  the 
peasant  of  to-day,  who  troubles  himself  little  with 
the  lore  of  events  and  their  succession,  doing  that 
which  some  ancient  chronicler  tells  us  his  ancestors 
did  a  thousand  years  ago,  and  keeping  in  all 
simplicity  some  festival,  the  story  of  whose  origin 
we  find   upon  its  written  page. 

To  the  philosophic  inquirer,  few  things  are  more 
important  in  the  annals  of  nations  than  their  festi- 
vals, their  anniversaries,  and  their  public  celebra- 
tions of  all  kinds.  In  nothing  is  their  peculiar 
character  more  strikingly  exhibited.     They  show  a 


20  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

people  in  its  undress,  acting  upon  its  impulses,  and 
separated  from  the  conventions  and  formalities  of 
its  every-day  existence.  We  may  venture  to  say 
that  could  we,  in  the  absence  of  every  other  rec- 
ord, be  furnished  with  a  complete  account  of  the 
festivals,  traditions,  and  anniversaries  of  any  given 
nation  now  extinct,  not  only  might  a  correct  esti- 
mate be  therefrom  made  of  their  progress  in  morals 
and  civilization,  but  a  conjectural  history  of  their 
doings  be  hazarded,  which  should  bear  a  closer 
resemblance  to  the  facts  than  many  an  existing  his- 
tory constructed  from  more  varied  materials. 

For  these  reasons  —  and  some  others,  which  are 
more  personal  and  less  philosophical  —  we  love  all 
old  traditions  and  holiday  customs.  Like  honest 
Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek,  we  "  delight  in  masques 
and  revels,  sometimes  altogether."  Many  a  happy 
chance  has  conducted  us  unpremeditatedly  into 
the  midst  of  some  rustic  festival,  whose  recollection 
is  amongst  our  pleasant  memories  yet,  —  and  many 
a  one  have  we  gone  venturously  forth  to  seek, — 
when  we  dwelt  in  the  more  immediate  neighbor- 
hood of  the  haunts  to  which,  one  by  one,  these  tra- 
ditionary observances  are  retiring  before  the  face 
of  civilization  !  The  natural  tendency  of  time  to 
obliterate  ancient  customs  and  silence  ancient 
sports,  is  too  much  promoted  by  the  utilitarian 
spirit  of  the  day  ;  and  they  who  would  have  no  man 
enjoy  without  being  able  to  give  a  reason  for  the 
enjoyment  which  is  in  him,  are  robbing  life  of  half 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER.  21 

its  beauty  and  some  of  its  virtues.  If  the  old  festi- 
vals and  hearty  commemorations  in  which  our  land 
was  once  so  abundant  —  and  which  obtained  for 
her,  many  a  long  day  since,  the  name  of  "  merrie 
England  "  —  had  no  other  recommendation  than 
their  convivial  character,  the  community  of  enjoy- 
ment which  they  imply,  they  would  on  that 
account  alone  be  worthy  of  all  promotion,  as  an 
antidote  to  the  cold  and  selfish  spirit  which  is  taint- 
ing the  life-blood  and  freezing  the  pulses  of  so- 
ciety. "  'T  is  good  to  be  merry  and  wise  ;  "  but  the 
wisdom  which  eschews  mirth,  and  holds  the  time 
devoted  to  it  as  so  much  wasted  by  being  taken 
from  the  schoolmaster,  is  very  questionable  wisdom 
in  itself,  and  assuredly  not  made  to  promote  the 
happiness  of  nations.  We  love  all  commemora- 
tions. We  love  these  anniversaries,  for  their  own 
sakes,  and  for  their  uses.  We  love  those  Lethes  of 
an  hour  which  have  a  virtue  beyond  their  gift  of 
oblivion,  and  while  they  furnish  a  temporary  for- 
getfulness  of  many  of  the  ills  of  life,  revive  the 
memory  of  many  a  past  enjoyment,  and  reawaken 
many  a  slumbering  affection.  We  love  those  mile- 
stones on  the  journey  of  life  beside  which  man  is 
called  upon  to  pause,  and  take  a  reckoning  of  the 
distance  he  has  passed,  and  of  that  which  he  may 
have  yet  to  go.  We  love  to  reach  those  free,  open 
spaces  at  which  the  cross-roads  of  the  world  con- 
verge, and  where  we  are  sure  to  meet,  as  at  a  com- 
mon  rendezvous,   with    travellers    from   its    many 


22  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

paths.  We  love  to  enter  those  houses  of  refresh- 
ment by  the  way-side  of  existence,  where  we  know 
we  shall  encounter  with  other  wayfarers  like  our- 
selves, —  perchance  with  friends  long  separated,  and 
whom  the  chances  of  the  world  keep  far  apart,  — 
and  whence,  after  a  sweet  communion  and  lusty 
festival  and  needful  rest,  we  may  go  forth  upon 
our  journey  new  fortified  against  its  accidents, 
and  strengthened  for  its  toils.  We  love  those  festi- 
vals which  have  been  made,  as  Washington  Irving 
says,  "  the  season  for  gathering  together  of  family 
connections,  and  drawing  closer  again  those  bonds 
of  kindred  hearts  which  the  cares  and  pleasures 
and  sorrows  of  the  world  are  continually  operating 
to  cast  loose  ;  of  calling  back  the  children  of  a 
family  who  have  launched  forth  in  life  and  wan- 
dered widely  asunder,  once  more  to  assemble  about 
the  paternal  hearth,  that  rallying  place  of  the  afTec- 
tions,  there  to  grow  young  and  loving  again  among 
the  endearing  mementos  of  childhood."  Above 
all,  we  love  those  seasons  ("  for  pity  is  not  com- 
mon !  "  says  the  old  ballad)  which  call  for  the 
exercise  of  a  general  hospitality,  and  give  the  poor 
man  his  few  and  precious  glimpses  of  a  plenty 
which,  as  the  world  is  managed,  his  toil  cannot 
buy ;  which  shelter  the  houseless  wanderer,  and 
feed  the  starving  child,  and  clothe  the  naked 
mother,  and  spread  a  festival  for  all,  —  those 
seasons  which  in  their  observance  by  our  ances- 
tors, kept  alive,  by   periodical   reawakenings,    that 


INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER.  23 

flame  of  charity  which  thus  had  scarcely  time 
wholly  to  expire  during  all  the  year.  We  love  all 
which  tends  to  call  man  from  the  solitary  and  chil- 
ling pursuit  of  his  own  separate  and  selfish  views 
into  the  warmth  of  a  common  sympathy,  and  within 
the  bands  of  a  common  brotherhood.  We  love 
these  commemorations,  as  we  have  said,  for  them- 
selves ;  we  love  them  for  their  uses  ;  and  still 
more  we  love  them  for  the  memories  of  our  boy- 
hood !  Many  a  bright  picture  do  they  call  up  in 
our  minds,  and  in  the  minds  of  most  who  have 
been  amongst  their  observers ;  for  with  these  festi- 
vals of  the  heart  are  inalienably  connected  many 
a  memory  for  sorrow  or  for  joy,  many  a  scene  of 
early  love,  many  a  merry  meeting  which  was  yet 
the  last,  many  a  parting  of  those  who  shall  part 
no  more,  many  a  joyous  group  composed  of 
materials  which  separated  only  too  soon  and  shall 
never  be  put  together  again  on  earth,  many  a  lost 
treasure  and  many  a  perished  hope,  — 

"  Hopes  that  were  angels  in  their  birth, 
But  perished  young,  like  things  of  earth." 

Happy,  happy  days  were  they  !  —  "Oh,  their  record 
is  lively  in  my  soul !  "  —  and  there  is  a  happiness, 
still,  in  looking  back  to  them  :  — 

"  Ye  are  dwelling  with  the  faded  flowers 
Ye  are  with  the  suns  long  set, 
But  oh,  your  memory,  gentle  hours. 
Is  a  living  vision  yet !  " 


24  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

Yet  are  they,  for  the  most  part,  eras  to  count  our 
losses  by.  Beside  them,  in  the  calendar  of  the  heart, 
is  written  many  a  private  note,  not  to  be  read  with- 
out bitter  tears  :  — 

"  There  's  many  a  lad  I  loved  is  gone, 
And  many  a  lass  grown  old ; 
And  when,  at  times,  I  think  thereon, 
My  weary  heart  grows  cold." 

"  Oh,  the  mad  days  that  I  have  spent,"  says  old 
Justice  Shallow,  "  and  to  see  how  many  of  mine 
old  acquaintance  are  dead  !  "  Yet  still  we  love  these 
commemorations  and  hail  them,  each  and  all,  as 
the  year  restores  them  to  us,  shorn  and  scarred 
as  they  are.  And  though  many  and  many  a  time 
the  welcome  has  faltered  on  our  lips  as  we  "  turned 
from  all  they  brought  to  all  they  could  not  bring," 
still  by  God's  help  we  will  enjoy  them,  as  yet  we 
may,  —  drawing  closer  to  us,  and  with  the  more 
reason,  the  friends  that  still  remain,  and  draining 
to  the  last  — 

"  One  draught,  in  memory  of  many 
A  joyous  banquet  past." 

The  revels  of  merry  England  are  fast  subsiding 
into  silence,  and  her  many  customs  wearing  gradu- 
ally away.  The  affectations  and  frivolities  of  so- 
ciety, as  well  as  its  more  grave  and  solemn  pursuits, 
—  the  exigences  of  fashion,  and  the  tongue  of  the 
pedagogue, — are  alike  arrayed  against  them;  and, 
one  by  one,  they  are  retreating  from  the  great  assem- 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER.  25 

blies  where  mankind  "  most  do  congregate,"  to  hide 
themselves  in  remote  solitudes  and  rural  nooks.  In 
fact,  that  social  change  which  has  enlarged  and 
filled  the  towns  at  the  expense  of  the  country, 
which  has  annihilated  the  yeomanry  of  England, 
and  drawn  the  estated  gentleman  from  the  shelter 
of  his  ancestral  oaks,  to  live  upon  their  produce  in 
the  haunts  of  dissipation,  has  been,  in  itself,  the 
circumstance  most  unfavorable  to  the  existence  of 
many  of  them,  which  delight  in  bye-ways  and  shel- 
tered places,  which  had  their  appropriate  homes 
in  the  old  manor  house  or  the  baronial  hall.  Yet 
do  they  pass  lingeringly  away.  Traces  of  most 
of  them  still  exist,  and  from  time  to  time  reap- 
pear even  in  our  cities  and  towns ;  and  there 
are  probably  scarcely  any  which  have  not  found 
some  remote  district  or  other  of  these  islands 
in  which  their  influence  is  still  acknowledged, 
and  their  rites  dijly  performed.  There  is  some- 
thing in  the  mind  of  man  which  attaches  him 
to  ancient  superstitions  even  for  the  sake  of  their 
antiquity,  and  endears  to  him  old  traditions  even 
because  they  are  old.  We  cannot  readily  shake  off 
our  reverence  for  that  which  our  fathers  have  rev- 
erenced so  long,  even  where  the  causes  in  which 
that  reverence  originated  are  not  very  obvious  or 
not  very  satisfactory.  We  believe  that  he  who 
shall  aid  in  preserving  the  records  of  these  vanish- 
ing observances,  ere  it  be  too  late,  will  do  good  and 
acceptable  service  in  his  generation  ;  and  such  con- 


26  THE    BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

tribution  to  that  end  as  we  have  in  our  power  it  is 
the  purpose  of  these  volumes  to  bestow.  Of  that 
taste  for  hunting  out  the  obsolete  which  originates 
in  the  mere  dry  spirit  of  antiquarianism,  or  is  pur- 
sued as  a  display  of  gladiatorial  skill  in  the  use  of 
the  intellectual  weapons,  we  profess  ourselves  no 
admirers.  But  he  who  pursues  in  the  track  of  a  re- 
ceding custom,  —  which  is  valuable  either  as  an  his- 
toiical  illustration  or  because  of  its  intrinsic  beauty, 
moral  or  picturesque,  —  is  an  antiquary  of  the  be- 
neficent kind  ;  and  he  who  assists  in  restoring  observ- 
ances which  had  a  direct  tendency  to  propagate  a 
feehng  of  brotherhood  and  a  spirit  of  benevolence, 
is  a  higher  benefactor  still.  Right  joyous  festivals 
there  have  been  amongst  us,  which  England  will  be 
none  the  merrier  —  and  kindly  ones  which  she  will 
be  none  the  better  —  for  losing.  The  following  pages 
will  give  some  account  of  that  season  which  has,  at 
all  times  since  the  establishment  of  Christianity, 
been  most  crowded  with  observances,  and  whose 
celebration  is  still  the  most  conspicuous  and  univer- 
sal with  us,  as  well  as  throughout  the  whole  of 
Christendom. 


THE   CHRISTMAS    SEASON. 


"Merry  Christmas  to  You!"  —  Page  29. 


THE  CHRISTMAS  SEASON. 


This  Book  of  Christmas  is  a  sound  and  good  persua- 
sion for  gentlemen,  and  all  wealthy  men,  to  keep  a  good 
Christmas. 

A  ha!  Christmas!    By  T.  H.  London.  1647. 

Any  man  or  woman  .  .  .  that  can  give  any  knowl- 
edge, or  tell  any  tidings,  of  an  old,  old,  very  old  gray- 
bearded  gentleman,  called  Christmas,  who  was  wont  to 
be  a  verie  familiar  ghest,  and  visite  all  sorts  of  people 
both  pore  and  rich,  and  used  to  appeare  in  glittering  gold, 
silk,  and  silver,  in  the  Court,  and  in  all  shapes  in  the  The- 
ater in  Whitehall,  and  had  ringing,  feasts,  and  jollitie  in  all 
places,  both  in  the  citie  and  countrie,  for  his  comming: 
.  .  .  whosoever  can  tel  what  is  become  of  him,  or  where 
he  may  be  found,  let  them  bring  him  back  againe  into 
England. 

An  Hue  and  Cry  after  Christmas. 

In  Ben  Jonson's  "  Mask  of  Christmas,"  presented 
before  the  court  in  16 16,  —  wherein  the  ancient  gen- 
tleman so  earnestly  inquired  after  in  one  of  the 
quotations  which  heads  this  chapter,  and  a  num- 
ber of  his  children,  compose  the  dramatis  persona;,  — 
that  venerable  personage  (who  describes  himself  as 
"  Christmas,  Old  Christmas,  Christmas  of  London, 


30  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

and  Captain  Christmas  ")  is  made  to  give  a  very 
significant  hint  to  some  parties  who  fail  to  receive 
him  with  due  ceremony,  which  hint  we  will,  in  all 
courtesy,  bestow  upon  our  readers.  "  I  have 
seen  the  time  you  have  wished  for  me,"  says  he ; 
..."  and  now  you  have  me,  they  would  not  let 
me  in.  I  must  come  another  time  !  —  a  good  jest ! 
As  if  I  could  come  more  than  once  a  year  1^''  Over 
and  over  again,  too,  has  this  same  very  pregnant 
argument  been  enforced  in  the  words  of  the  old 
ballad,  quoted  in  the  "  Vindication  of  Christmas,"  — 

"  Let 's  dance  and  sing,  and  make  good  cheer, 
For  Christmas  comes  but  once  ayear!" 

Now  if  this  suggestion  was  full  of  grave  meaning 
in  the  days  of  Jonson,  —  when  the  respectable 
old  man  was  for  the  most  part  well  received 
and  liberally  feasted,  when  he  fed  with  his  laugh- 
ing children  at  the  tables  of  princes,  and  took 
tribute  at  the  hands  of  kings,  when  he  showed 
beneath  the  snows  of  his  reverend  head  a  portly 
countenance  (the  result  of  much  revelling),  an  eye 
in  which  the  fire  was  unquenched,  and  a  frame  from 
which  little  of  the  lustihood  had  yet  departed,  —  we 
confess  that  we  feel  its  import  to  be  greatly  height- 
ened in  these  our  days,  when  the  patriarch  himself 
exhibits  undeniable  signs  of  a  failing  nature,  and 
many  of  his  once  rosy  sons  are  evidently  in  the 
different  stages  of  a  common  decline.  A  fine  and 
a  cheerful  family  the  old  man  had  ;  and  never  came 


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THE   CHRISTMAS    SEASON,  31 

they  within  any  man's  door  without  well  repaying 
the  outlay  incurred  on  their  account.  To  us,  at  all 
times,  their  "  coming  was  a  gladness ; "  and  we 
feel  that  we  could  not,  without  a  pang,  see  their 
honest  and  familiar  faces  rejected  from  our  thresh- 
old, with  the  knowledge  that  the  course  of  their 
wanderings  could  not  return  them  to  us  under 
a  period  so  protracted  as  that  of  twelve  whole 
months. 

In  that  long  space  of  time,  besides  the  uncer- 
tainty of  what  may  happen  to  ourselves,  there  is 
but  too  much  reason  to  fear  that,  unless  a  change 
for  the  better  should  take  place,  some  one  or  more 
of  the  neglected  children  may  be  dead.  We  could 
not  but  have  apprehensions  that  the  group  might 
never  return  to  us  entire.  Death  has  already  made 
much  havoc  amongst  them,  since  the  days  of  Ben 
Jonson.  Alas  for  Baby-cocke  !  and  woe  is  me  for 
Post-and-paire !  And  although  Carol,  and  Minced- 
pie,  and  New-year's  Gift,  and  Wassail,  and  Twelfth- 
cake,  and  some  others  of  the  children,  appear  still 
to  be  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  tolerably  vigorous  health, 
yet  we  are  not  a  little  anxious  about  Snap-dragon, 
and  our  mind  is  far  from  being  easy  on  the  subject 
of  Hot-cockles.  It  is  but  too  obvious  that,  one  by 
one,  this  once  numerous  and  pleasant  family  are 
falling  away ;  and  as  the  old  man  will  assuredly  not 
survive  his  children,  we  may  yet,  in  our  day,  have 
to  join  in  the  heavy  lamentation  of  the  lady  at  the 
sad  result  of  the  above  "  Hue  and  Cry.'     "  But  is 


32  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

old,  old,  good  old  Christmas  gone  ?  —  nothing  but 
the  hair  of  his  good,  grave  old  head  and  beard  left !  " 
For  these  reasons,  he  and  his  train  shall  be  welcome 
to  us  as  often  as  they  come.  It  shall  be  a  heavy 
dispensation  under  which  we  will  suffer  them  to 
pass  by  our  door  unbailed  ;  and  if  we  can  prevail 
upon  our  neighbors  to  adopt  our  example,  the 
veteran  and  his  offspring  may  yet  be  restored. 
They  are  dying  for  lack  of  nourishment.  They 
have  been  used  to  live  on  most  bountiful  fare,  — 
to  feed  on  chines  and  turkeys  and  drink  of  the 
wassail-bowl.  The  rich  juices  of  their  constitution 
are  not  to  be  maintained,  far  less  re-estabhshed, 
at  a  less  generous  rate  ;  and  though  we  will,  for  our 
parts,  do  what  lies  in  our  power,  yet  it  is  not  within 
the  reach  of  any  private  gentleman's  exertions  or 
finances  to  set  them  on  their  legs  again.  It  should 
be  made  a  national  matter  of;  and  as  the  old  gen- 
tleman, with  his  family,  will  be  coming  our  way 
soon  after  the  publication  of  the  present  volume, 
we  trust  we  may  be  the  means  of  inducing  some 
to  receive  them  with  the  ancient  welcome  and  feast 
them  after  the  ancient  fashion. 

To  enable  our  readers  to  do  this  with  due  effect, 
we  will  endeavor  to  furnish  them  with  a  programme 
of  some  of  the  more  important  ceremonies  observed 
by  our  hearty  ancestors  on  the  occasion,  and  to 
give  them  some  explanation  of  those  observances 
which  linger  still,  although  the  causes  in  which 
their  institution  originated  are  becoming  gradually 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  33 

obliterated,  and  although  they  themselves  are  falling 
into  a  neglect  which  augurs  too  plainly  of  their 
final  and  speedy  extinction. 

It  is,  alas !  but  too  true  that  the  spirit  of  hearty 
festivity  in  which  our  ancestors  met  this  season  has 
been  long  on  the  decline  ;  and  much  of  the  joyous 
pomp  with  which  it  was  once  received  has  long 
since  passed  away.  Those  "  divers  plente  of  ples- 
aunces,"  in  which  the  genius  of  mirth  exhibited 
himself,  — 

"  About  yule,  when  the  wind  blew  cule, 
And  the  round  tables  began,"  — 

have  sent  forward  to  these  dull  times  of  ours  but 
few,  and  those  sadly  degenerated,  representatives. 
The  wild,  barbaric  splendor  ;  the  unbridled  "  mirth 
and  princely  cheare  "  with  which,  upon  the  faith 
of  ancient  ballads,  we  learn  that  "  ages  long  ago  " 
King  Arthur  kept  Christmas  "in  merry  Carleile  " 
with  Queen  Guenever,  "  that  bride  soe  bright  of 
blee  ;  "  the  wholesale  hospitality ;  the  royal  stores  of 
"  pigs'  heads  and  gammons  of  bacon  "  for  a  Christ- 
mas largesse  to  the  poor,  at  which  we  get  glimpses 
in  the  existing  records  of  the  not  over-hospitable 
reign  of  King  John ;  the  profuse  expenditure  and 
stately  ceremonial  by  which  the  season  was  illus- 
trated in  the  reign  of  the  vain  and  selfish  Elizabeth  ; 
and  the  lordly  wassailings  and  antic  mummings, 
whose  universal  prevalence,  at  this  period  of  the 
year,  furnished  subjects  of  such  holy  horror  to  the 
Puritans  in  the  time  of  the  first  Charles,  —  have 
3 


34  THE   BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

gradually  disappeared  before  the  philosophic  pre- 
tensions and  chilling  pedantry  of  these  sage  and 
self-seeking  days.  The  picturesque  effects  of  so- 
ciety —  its  strong  lights  and  deep  shadows  —  are 
rapidly  passing  away  ;  as  the  inequalities  of  surface 
from  which  they  were  projected  are  smoothed 
and  polished  down.  From  a  period  of  high  cere- 
monial and  public  celebration,  which  it  long  con- 
tinued to  be  in  England,  the  Christmas-tide  has 
tamed  away  into  a  period  of  domestic  union  and 
social  festivity ;  and  the  ancient  observances 
which  covered  it  all  over  with  sparkling  points  are 
now  rather  perceived  —  faintly  and  distantly  and 
imperfectly  —  by  the  light  of  the  still  surviving 
spirit  of  the  season  than  contribute  anything  to 
that  spirit,  or  throw  as  of  old  any  light  over  that 
season  from  themselves. 

Of  the  various  causes  which  contribute  to  the 
mingled  festival  of  the  Christmas-tide,  there  are 
some  which  have  their  origin  in  feelings,  and  are 
the  remains  of  observances  that  existed  previously 
to  that  event  from  which  the  season  now  derives 
its  name.  After  the  establishment  of  Christianity, 
its  earhest  teachers,  feeling  the  impossibility  of  re- 
placing at  once  those  pagan  commemorations  which 
had  taken  long  and  deep  root  in  the  constitution  of 
society  and  become  identified  with  the  feelings  of 
nations,  endeavored  rather  to  purify  them  from 
their  uncleanness,  and  adapt  them  to  the  uses  of 
the   new  religion.     By  this  arrangement,  many  an 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  35 

object  of  pagan  veneration  became  an  object  of 
veneration  to  the  early  Christians ;  and  the  poly- 
theism of  papal  Rome  (promoted,  in  part,  by  this 
very  compromise,  working  in  the  stronghold  of  the 
ancient  superstition)  became  engrafted  upon  the 
polytheism  of  the  heathen.  At  a  later  period,  too, 
the  Protestant  reformers  of  that  corrupted  worship 
found  themselves,  from  a  similar  impossibility,  un- 
der a  similar  necessity  of  retaining  a  variety  of 
Catholic  observances ;  and  thus  it  is  that  festival 
customs  still  exist  amongst  us  which  are  the  direct 
descendants  of  customs  connected  with  the  classic 
or  druidical  superstitions,  and  sports  which  may  be 
traced  to  the  celebrations  observed  of  old  in  honor 
of  Saturn  or  of  Bacchus. 

Amongst  those  celebrations  which  have  thus  sur- 
vived the  decay  of  the  religions  with  which  they 
were  connected,  by  being  made  subservient  to  the 
new  faith  (or  purified  forms)  which  replaced  them, 
that  which  takes  place  at  the  period  of  the  new 
year  —  placed  as  that  epoch  is  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  winter  solstice  —  stands  conspicuous.  Be- 
queathed as  this  ancient  commemoration  has  been, 
with  many  of  its  forms  of  rejoicing,  by  the  pagan 
to  the  Christian  world,  it  has  been  by  the  latter 
thrown  into  close  association  with  their  own  festival 
observances  in  honor  of  the  first  great  event  in  the 
history  of  their  revelation ;  and  while  the  old  ob- 
servances and  the  feelings  in  which  they  originated 
have   thus  been   preserved    to   swell   the    tide   of 


36  THE   BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

Christian  triumph,  their  pedigree  has  been  over- 
looked amid  the  far  higher  interest  of  the  ob- 
servances by  whose  side  they  stand,  and  their 
ancient  titles  merged  in  that  of  the  high  family  into 
which  they  have  been  adopted. 

In  most  nations  of  ancient  or  modern  times,  the 
period  of  what  is  popularly  called  the  winter  solstice 
appears  to  have  been  recognized  as  a  season  of 
rejoicing.  The  deepening  gloom  and  increasing 
sterility  which  have  followed  the  downward  progress 
of  the  sun's  place  in  heaven  would  generally  dis- 
pose the  minds  of  men  to  congratulation  at  the 
arrival  of  that  period  when,  as  experience  had 
taught  them,  he  had  reached  his  lowest  point  of 
influence  with  reference  to  them;  and  the  prospects 
of  renewed  light,  and  warmth,  and  vegetation  offered 
by  what  was  considered  as  his  returning  march, 
would  naturally  be  hailed  by  the  signs  of  thanks- 
giving and  the  voice  of  mirth.  The  Roman 
Saturnalia,  which  fell  at  this  period,  were  accord- 
ingly a  season  of  high  festivity,  honored  by  many 
privileges  and  many  exemptions  from  ill.  I'he 
spirit  of  universal  mirth  and  unbounded  license 
was  abroad,  and  had  a  free  charter.  Friends  feasted 
together,  and  the  quarrels  of  foes  were  suspended. 
No  war  was  declared  and  no  capital  executions 
were  permitted  to  take  place  during  this  season  of 
general  good-will ;  and  the  very  slave,  beneath 
its  genial  influence,  regained  for  a  moment  the 
moral  attitude  of  a  man,  and   had  a  right  to  use 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  37 

the  tongue  which  God  had  given  him,  for  its 
original  purpose  of  expressing  his  thoughts.  Not 
only  in  the  spirit  of  the  time  but  in  many  of  the  forms 
which  it  took,  may  a  resemblance  be  traced  to  the 
Christmas  rejoicings  of  later  days.  The  hymns  in 
honor  of  Saturn  were  the  Roman  representatives 
of  the  modern  carol  ;  and  presents  passed  from 
friend  to  friend,  as  Christmas  gifts  do  in  our  day. 
( It  may  be  observed  here  that  the  interchange  of 
gifts  and  the  offering  of  donations  to  the  poor 
appear  to  have  been,  at  all  periods  of  rejoicing  or 
delivery,  from  the  eariiest  times,  one  of  the  modes 
by  which  the  heart  manifested  its  thankfulness ; 
and  our  readers  may  be  referred  for  a  single 
example,  where  examples  abound,  to  the  directions 
recorded  in  the  Book  of  Esther,  as  given  by  Mor- 
decai  to  the  Jews  in  Shushan,  for  celebrating  their 
escape  from  the  conspiracy  of  Haman :  that  on 
the  anniversaries  of  "  the  days  wherein  the  Jews 
rested  from  their  enemies,  and  the  month  which 
was  turned  unto  them  from  sorrow  to  joy  and  from 
mourning  into  a  good  day,  they  should  make  them 
days  of  feasting  and  joy,  and  of  sending  portions 
one  to  another  and  gifts  to  the  poor.  ")  But  a 
more  striking  resemblance  still  between  the  forms 
observed  during  the  days  of  the  Saturnalia  and 
those  by  which  the  Christmas  festival  was  long 
illustrated  may  be  noticed  in  the  ruler,  or  king, 
who  was  appointed,  with  considerable  prerogatives, 
to  preside  over  the  sports  of  the  former.     He  is  the 


38  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

probable  ancestor  of  that  high  potentate  who,  under 
the  title  of  Christmas  Prince,  Lord  of  Misrule,  or 
Abbot  of  Unreason,  exercised  a  similar  sway  o\er 
the  Christmas  games  of  more  recent  times,  and 
whose  last  descendant  —  the  Twelfth-night  King  — 
still  rules  with  a  diminished  glor)'  over  the  linger- 
ing revelries  of  a  single  night. 

In  the  Northern  nations  of  ancient  Europe  the 
same  period  of  the  year  was  celebrated  by  a  fes- 
tival in  honor  of  the  God  Thor,  which,  like  the 
Roman  Saturnalia  and  the  festival  of  our  own 
times,  was  illustrated  by  the  song,  the  dance,  and 
the  feast,  executed  after  their  barbarous  fashion, 
and  mingled  with  the  savage  rites  of  their  own  re- 
ligion. The  name  of  this  celebration  —  Yule,  Jule, 
lul,  or  lol  —  has  given  rise  to  many  disputes  amongst 
antiquaries  as  to  its  derivation,  whose  arguments, 
however,  we  need  not  report  for  the  benefit  of 
our  readers  till  judgment  shall  have  been  finally 
pronounced.  When  that  time  shall  arrive,  we  un- 
dertake to  publish  a  new  edition  of  the  present  work, 
for  the  purpose  of  giving  our  readers  an  abstract  of 
the  pleadings  and  acquainting  them  with  the  ulti- 
mate decision.  In  the  mean  time,  we  will  let  Sir 
Walter  Scott  inform  them  how  — 

"  The  savage  Dane, 

At  lol,  more  deep  the  mead  did  drain ; 

High  on  the  beach  his  galleys  drew, 

And  feasted  all  his  pirate-crew  ; 

Then,  in  his  low  and  pine-built  hall, 

Where  shields  and  axes  decked  the  wall, 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  39 

They  gorged  upon  the  half-dressed  steer, 
Caroused  in  sea  of  sable  beer, — 
While  round,  in  brutal  jest,  were  thrown 
The  half-gnawed  rib  and  marrow-bone ; 
Or  listened  all,  in  grim  delight, 
While  Scalds  yelled  out  the  joys  of  fight. 
Then  forth  in  frenzy  would  they  hie. 
While  wildly  loose  their  red  locks  fly, 
And,  dancing  round  the  blazing  pile, 
They  made  such  barbarous  mirth  the  while. 
As  best  might  to  the  mind  recall 
The  boisterous  joys  of  Odin's  hall." 

Amongst  other  traces  of  the  northern  observances 
which  have  descended  to  our  times,  and  of  which 
we  shall  have  occasion  hereafter  to  speak,  the  name 
of  the  festival  itself  has  come  down,  and  is  still  re- 
tained by  our  Scottish  brethren,  as  well  as  in  some 
parts  of  England. 

The  Christian  festival  of  the  Nativity,  with  which 
these  ancient  celebrations  have  been  incorporated, 
appears  to  have  been  appointed  at  a  very  early  pe- 
riod after  the  establishment  of  the  new  religion. 
Its  first  positive  footsteps  are  met  with  in  the  sec- 
ond century,  during  the  reign  of  the  Emperor 
Concordius ;  but  the  decretal  epistles  furnish  us 
with  traces  of  it  more  remote.  At  whatever  period, 
however,  its  formal  institution  is  to  be  placed,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  an  event  so  striking  in  its 
manner  and  so  important  in  itself  would  be  annually 
commemorated  amongst  Christians  from  the  days 
of  the  first  apostles,  who  survived  our  Lord's  resur- 
rection.    As   to   the   actual  year   of   the   birth   of 


40  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

Christ,  as  well  as  the  period  of  the  year  at  which 
it  took  place,  great  uncertainty  seems  to  exist,  and 
many  controversies  have  been  maintained.  One  of 
the  theories  on  the  subject,  held  to  be  amongst  the 
most  probable,  places  that  event  upwards  of  five 
years  earlier  than  the  vulgar  era,  which  latter,  how- 
ever, both  as  regards  the  year  and  season  of  the 
year,  was  a  tradition  of  the  primitive  Church.  In 
the  first  ages  of  that  Church,  and  up  till  the  Coun- 
cil of  Nice,  the  celebration  of  the  Nativity  and  that 
of  the  Epiphany  were  united  on  the  25th  of  De- 
cember, from  a  belief  that  the  birth  of  Christ  was 
simultaneous  with  the  appearance  of  the  star  in  the 
East  which  revealed  it  to  the  Gentiles.  The  time 
of  the  year  at  which  the  Nativity  fell  has  been 
placed,  by  contending  opinions,  at  the  period  of 
the  Jewish  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  at  that  of  the  Pass- 
over, and  again  at  that  of  the  Feast  of  the  Expia- 
tion, whose  date  corresponds  with  the  close  of  our 
September.  Clemens  Alexandrinus  informs  us  that 
it  was  kept  by  many  Christians  in  April,  and  by 
others  in  the  Egyptian  month  Pachon,  which  an- 
swers to  our  May.  Amongst  the  arguments  which 
have  been  produced  against  the  theory  that  places 
its  occurrence  in  the  depth  of  winter,  one  has 
been  gathered  from  that  passage  in  the  sacred 
history  of  the  event  which  states  that  "  there  were 
shepherds  abiding  in  the  field,  keeping  watch  over 
their  flocks  by  night."  It  is  an  argument,  however, 
which  does  not  seem  very  conclusive  in  a  pastoral 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  41 

country  and  Eastern  climate.  Besides  the  employ- 
ment which  this  question  has  afforded  to  the  learned, 
it  has,  in  times  of  religious  excitement,  been  de- 
bated with  much  Puritanical  virulence  and  secta- 
rian rancor.  For  the  purposes  of  commemoration, 
however,  it  is  unimportant  whether  the  celebration 
shall  fall  or  not  at  the  precise  anniversary  period 
of  the  event  commemorated ;  and  the  arrangement 
which  assigns  to  it  its  place  in  our  calendar  fixes  it 
at  a  season  when  men  have  leisure  for  a  lengthened 
festivity,  and  when  their  minds  are  otherwise  whole- 
somely acted  upon  by  many  touching  thoughts  and 
solemn  considerations. 

From  the  first  introduction  of  Christianity  into 
these  islands,  the  period  of  the  Nativity  seems  to 
have  been  kept  as  a  season  of  festival,  and  its 
observance  recognized  as  a  matter  of  state.  The 
Wittenagemots  of  our  Saxon  ancestors  were  held 
under  the  solemn  sanctions  and  beneficent  influences 
of  the  time  ;  and  the  series  of  high  festivities  estab- 
lished by  the  Anglo-Saxon  kings  appear  to  have 
been  continued,  with  yearly  increasing  splendor 
and  multiplied  ceremonies,  under  the  monarchs  of 
the  Norman  race.  From  the  court  the  spirit  of  rev- 
elry descended  by  all  its  thousand  arteries  through- 
out the  universal  frame  of  society,  visiting  its  fur- 
thest extremities  and  most  obscure  recesses,  and 
everywhere  exhibiting  its  action,  as  by  so  many 
pulses,  upon  the  traditions  and  superstitions  and 
customs  which  were  common  to  all  or  peculiar  to 


42  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

each.  The  pomp  and  ceremonial  of  the  royal  ob- 
servance were  imitated  in  the  splendid  estabhsh- 
ments  of  the  more  wealthy  nobles,  and  more  faintly 
reflected  from  the  diminished  state  of  the  petty 
baron.  The  revelries  of  the  baronial  castle  found 
echoes  in  the  hall  of  the  old  manor-house  ;  and 
these  were,  again,  repeated  in  the  tapestried  cham- 
ber of  the  country  magistrate  or  from  the  sanded 
parlor  of  the  village  inn.  Merriment  was  every- 
where a  matter  of  pubhc  concernment;  and  the 
spirit  which  assembles  men  in  families  now  congre- 
gated them  by  districts  then. 

Neither,  however,  were  the  feelings  wanting 
which  connected  the  superstitions  of  the  season 
with  the  tutelage  of  the  roof-tree,  and  mingled  its 
ceremonies  with  the  sanctities  of  home.  Men  might 
meet  in  crowds  to  feast  beneath  the  banner  of  the 
baron,  but  the  mistletoe  hung  over  each  man's 
own  door.  The  black-jacks  might  go  round  in  the 
hall  of  the  lord  of  the  manor ;  but  they  who  could 
had  a  wassail-bowl  of  their  own.  The  pageantries 
and  high  observances  of  the  time  might  draw  men 
to  common  centres  or  be  performed  on  a  common 
account,  but  the  flame  of  the  Yule-log  roared  up 
all  the  individual  chimneys  of  the  land.  Old  Father 
Christmas,  at  the  head  of  his  numerous  and  up- 
roarious family,  might  ride  his  goat  through  the 
streets  of  the  city  and  the  lanes  of  the  village, 
but  he  dismounted  to  sit  for  some  few  moments  by 
each  man's  hearth  ;  while  some  one  or  another  of 


THE   CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  43 

his  merry  sons  would  break  away,  to  visit  the  remote 
farm-houses  or  show  their  laughing  faces  at  many 
a  poor  man's  door.  For  be  it  observed,  this 
worthy  old  gentleman  and  his  kind-hearted  chil- 
dren were  no  respecters  of  persons.  Though  trained 
to  courts,  they  had  ever  a  taste  for  a  country  life. 
Though  accustomed  in  those  days  to  the  tables  of 
princes,  they  sat  freely  down  at  the  poor  man's 
board.  Though  welcomed  by  the  peer,  they  showed 
no  signs  of  superciliousness  when  they  found  them- 
selves cheek-by-jowl  with  the  pauper.  Nay,  they 
appear  even  to  have  preferred  the  less  exalted  so- 
ciety, and  to  have  felt  themselves  more  at  ease  in 
the  country  mansion  of  the  private  gentleman  than 
in  the  halls  of  kings.  Their  reception  in  those  high 
places  was  accompanied,  as  royal  receptions  are  apt 
to  be,  by  a  degree  of  state  repugnant  to  their  frank 
natures ;  and  they  seem  never  to  have  been  so 
happy  as  when  they  found  themselves  amongst  a 
set  of  free  and  easy  spirits,  —  whether  in  town  or 
country,  —  unrestrained  by  the  punctilios  of  eti- 
quette, who  had  the  privilege  of  laughing  just 
when  it  struck  them  to  do  so,  without  inquiring 
wherefore,  or  caring  how  loud. 

Then,  what  a  festival  they  created  !  The  land 
rang  with  their  joyous  voices,  and  the  frosty  air 
steamed  with  the  incense  of  the  good  things  pro- 
vided for  their  entertainment.  Everybody  kept  hol- 
iday but  the  cooks ;  and  all  sounds  known  to  the 
human  ear  seemed  mingled  in  the  merry  paean,  save 


44  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

the  gobble  of  the  turkeys.  There  were  no  turkeys,  — 
at  least  they  had  lost  their  "most  sweet  voices." 
The  turnspits  had  a  hard  time  of  it,  too.  That 
quaint  little  book  which  bears  the  warm  and  prom- 
ising title  of  "  Round  about  our  Coal  Fire  "  tells  us 
that  "  by  the  time  dinner  was  over  they  would  look 
as  black  and  as  greasy  as  a  Welsh  porridge-pot." 
Indeed,  the  accounts  of  that  time  dwell  with  great 
and  savory  emphasis  upon  the  prominent  share 
which  eating  and  drinking  had  in  the  festivities  of 
the  season.  There  must  have  been  sad  havoc  made 
amongst  the  live-stock.  That  there  are  turkeys  at 
all  in  our  days  is  only  to  be  accounted  for  upon 
the  supposition  of  England  having  been  occasionally 
replenished  with  that  article  from  the  East;  and 
our  present  possession  of  geese  must  be  explained 
by  the  well-known  impossibility  of  extinguishing  the 
race  of  the  goose.  It  is  difificult  to  imagine  a  con- 
sumption equal  to  the  recorded  provision.  Men's 
gastronomic  capacities  appear  to  have  been  enlarged 
for  the  occasion,  as  the  energies  expand  to  meet 
great  emergencies.  "  The  tables,"  says  the  same 
racy  authority  above  quoted,  "  were  all  spread  from 
the  first  to  the  last ;  the  sirloyns  of  beef,  the  minc'd- 
pies,  the  plumb-porridge,  the  capons,  turkeys,  geese, 
and  plumb-puddings  were  all  brought  upon  the 
board ;  and  all  those  who  had  sharp  stomachs  and 
sharp  knives  eat  heartily  and  were  welcome,  which 
gave  rise  to  the  proverb,  — 

"'  Merry  in  the  hall,  when  beards  wag  all  !'" 


THE  CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  45 

Now,  all  men  in  those  days  appear  to  have  had 
good  stomachs,  and,  we  presume,  took  care  to  pro- 
vide themselves  with  sharp  knives.  The  only  re- 
corded instance  in  which  we  find  a  failure  of  the 
latter  is  that  portentous  one  which  occurred,  many 
a  long  day  since,  in  the  court  of  King  Arthur,  when 
the  Christmas  mirth  was  so  strangely  disturbed  by 
the  mischievous  interference  of  the  Boy  with  the 
Mantle.  Under  the  test  introduced  by  that  imp  of 
discord  and  which  appears  to  have  "  taken  the 
shine  out  of"  the  monarch's  own  good  sword  Excal- 
ibur  itself,  there  was  found  but  one  knight,  of  all 
the  hungry  knights  who  sat  at  that  Round  Table, 
whose  weapon  was  sharp  enough  to  carve  the  boar's 
head  or  hand  steady  enough  to  carry  the  cup  to 
his  lip  without  spilling  the  lamb's  wool ;  and  even 
he  had  a  very  narrow  escape  from  the  same  incapa- 
cities. But  then,  as  we  have  said,  this  was  at  court, 
and  under  the  influence  of  a  spell  (with  whose  na- 
ture we  take  it  for  granted  that  our  readers  are  ac- 
quainted, —  and,  if  not,  we  refer  them  to  the  Percy 
Ballads)  ;  and  it  is  probable  that,  in  those  early  as 
in  later  days,  tests  of  such  extreme  delicacy  were 
of  far  more  dangerous  introduction  in  the  courts  of 
kings  than  amongst  assemblies  of  more  mirth  and 
less  pretension.  We  could  by  no  means  feel  sure 
that  the  intrusion,  in  our  own  times,  of  a  similar 
test  into  a  similar  scene  might  not  spoil  the 
revels. 

But  to  return.      The  old  ballads  which  relate  to 


46  THE   BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

this  period  of  the  year  are  redolent  of  good  things, 
and  not  to  be  read  by  a  hungry  man  with  any  de- 
gree of  equanimity.  Of  course  they  are  ex  post 
facto  ballads,  and  could  only  have  been  written 
under  the  inspiration  of  memory,  at  a  time  when 
men  were  at  leisure  to  devote  their  hands  to  some 
other  occupation  than  that  of  cooking  or  carving. 
But  it  is  very  difficult  to  understand  how  they  ever 
found  —  as  it  appears  they  did  —  their  mouths  in  a 
condition  to  sing  them  at  the  season  itself  There 
is  one  amongst  those  ballads,  of  a  comparatively 
modern  date,  printed  in  Evans's  collection,  which  we 
advise  no  man  to  read  fasting.  It  is  directed  to  be 
sung  to  the  tune  of  "  The  Delights  of  the  Bottle," 
and  contains  in  every  verse  a  vision  of  good  things, 
summed  up  by  the  perpetually  recurring  burthen  of 

"  Plum-pudding,  goose,  capon,  minc'd-pies,  and  roast  beef." 

Our  readers  had  better  take  a  biscuit  and  a  glass  of 
sherry  before  they  venture  upon  the  glimpses  into 
those  regions  of  banqueting  which  we  are  tempted 
to  lay  before  them.  The  ballad  opens  like  the  ring- 
ing of  a  dinner-bell,  and,  we  conceive,  should  be 
sung  to  some  such  accompaniment :  — 

"  All  you  that  to  feasting  and  mirth  are  inclin'd, 
Come  here  is  good  news  for  to  pleasure  your  mind,  — 
Old  Christmas  is  come  for  to  keep  open  house, 
He  scorns  to  be  guilty  of  starving  a  mouse : 
Then  come,  boys,  and  welcome  for  diet  the  chief, 
Plum-pudding,  goose,  capon,  minc'd-pies,  and  roast  beef." 


Enjoying  Christmas.  —  Page  46. 


THE   CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  47 

"Diet  the  chief  T''  — by  which  we  are  to  under- 
stand that  this  promising  muster-roll  merely  includes 
the  names  of  some  of  the  principal  viands,  —  the 
high-commissioned  dishes  of  the  feast,  —  leaving  the 
subalterns,  and  the  entire  rank  and  file  which  com- 
plete the  goodly  array,  unraentioned.  It  must  have 
been  a  very  ingenious  or  a  very  strong-minded 
mouse  which  could  contrive  to  be  starved  under 
such  circumstances.  The  ballad  is  long,  and  we 
can  only  afford  to  give  our  readers  "  tastings  "  of 
its  good  things.  It  is  everywhere  full  of  most 
gracious  promise :  — 

"  The  cooks  shall  be  busied,  by  day  and  by  night, 
In  roasting  and  boiling,  for  taste  and  delight, 
Their  senses  in  liquor  that 's  nappy  they  '11  steep, 
Though  they  be  afforded  to  have  little  sleep  ; 
They  still  are  employed  for  to  dress  us,  in  brief, 
Plum-pudding,  goose,  capon,  minc'd-pies,  and  roast  beef. 

"  Although  the  cold  weather  doth  hunger  provoke, 
'T  is  a  comfort  to  see  how  the  chimneys  do  smoke  ; 
Provision  is  making  for  beer,  ale,  and  wine. 
For  all  that  are  willing  or  ready  to  dine : 
Then  haste  to  the  kitchen  for  diet  the  chief. 
Plum-pudding,  goose,  capon,  minc'd-pies,  and  roast  beef. 

"  All  travellers,  as  they  do  pass  on  their  way. 
At  gentlemen's  halls  are  invited  to  stay. 
Themselves  to  refresh  and  their  horses  to  rest, 
Since  that  he  must  be  old  Christmas's  guest ; 
Nay,  the  poor  shall  not  want,  but  have  for  relief 
Plum-pudding,  goose,  capon,  minc'd-pies,  and  roast  beef." 

And  so  on,  through  a  variety  of  joyous  and  sub- 
stantial anticipations,  from  which  the  writer  draws 


45  THE   BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

an  inference,  which  we  think  is  most  satisfactorily 
made  out :  — 

"  Then  well  may  we  welcome  old  Christmas  to  town, 
Who  brings  us  good  cheer,  and  good  liquor  so  brown ; 
To  pass  the  cold  winter  away  with  delight, 
We  feast  it  all  day,  and  we  frolick  all  night." 

In  Ellis's  edition  of  Brand's  "Popular  Antiqui- 
ties "  an  old  Christmas  song  is  quoted  from  "  Poor 
Robin's  Almanack"  for  1695,  which  gives  a  similar 
enumeration  of  Christmas  dainties,  but  throws  them 
into  a  form  calculated  for  more  rapid  enunciation,  as 
if  with  a  due  regard  to  the  value  of  those  moments 
at  which  it  was  probably  usual  to  sing  it.  The 
measure  is  not  such  a  mouthful  as  that  of  the  former 
one  which  we  have  quoted.  It  comes  trippingly 
off  the  tongue  ;  and  it  is  not  impossible  that,  in 
those  days  of  skilful  gastronomy,  it  might  have  been 
sung  eating.  We  will  quote  a  couple  of  the  verses, 
though  they  include  the  same  commissariat  truths 
as  that  from  which  we  have  already  extracted  ;  and 
our  readers  will  observe,  from  the  ill-omened  wish 
which  concludes  the  second  of  these  stanzas,  in  what 
horror  the  mere  idea  oi fasting  had  come  to  be  held, 
since  it  is  the  heaviest  curse  which  suggested  itself 
to  be  launched  against  those  who  refused  to  do 
homage  to  the  spirit  of  the  times  :  — 

"  Now  thrice  welcome  Christmas, 
Which  brings  us  good  cheer, 
Minc'd  pies  and  plumb-porridge, 
Good  ale  and  strong  beer  ; 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  49 

With  pig,  goose,  and  capon, 

The  best  that  may  be, 
So  well  cloth  the  weather 

And  our  stomachs  agree. 

Observe  how  the  chimneys 

Do  smoak  all  about. 
The  cooks  are  providing 

For  dinner  no  doubt ; 
But  those  on  whose  tables 

No  victuals  appear, 
O  may  they  keep  Lent 

All  the  rest  of  the  year  !  " 

The  same  author  quotes,  from  a  manuscript  in 
the  British  Museum,  an  Anglo-Norman  carol  of  the 
early  date  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  appends 
to  it  a  translation  by  the  late  Mr.  Douce,  the  fol- 
lowing verse  of  which  translation  informs  us  (what, 
at  any  rate,  might  well  be  supposed,  namely)  that  so 
much  good  eating  on  the  part  of  the  ancient  gentle- 
man, Christmas,  would  naturally  suggest  the  pro- 
priety of  good  drinking,  too  :  — 

"  Lordings,  Christmas  loves  good  drinking. 

Wines  of  Gascoigne,  France,  Anjou, 
English  ale,  that  drives  out  thinking, 

Prince  of  liquors  old  or  new. 
Every  neighbor  shares  the  bowl,  , 

Drinks  of  the  spicy  liquor  deep, 
Drinks  his  fill  without  controul, 

Till  he  drowns  his  care  in  sleep." 

"  In  a  "  Christmas  Carroll,"  printed  at  the  end  of 

Wither's  "  Juvenilia,"  a  graphic  account  is  given  of 

some  of  the  humors  of  Christmas,  among  which  the 

labors  of  the  kitchen  are  introduced  in  the ^rsl  verse, 

4 


50  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

with  a  due  regard  to  their  right  of  precedency,  and 
in  words  which,  if  few,  are  full  of  suggestion  :  — 

"  Lo,  now  is  come  our  joyful'st  feast ! 

Let  every  man  be  jolly. 
Each  roome  with  yvie  leaves  is  drest, 

And  every  post  with  holly. 
Now,  all  our  neighbour's  chimneys  smoke, 

And  Christmas  Blocks  are  burning; 
Their  ovens  they  with  bak't-meats  choke, 

And  all  their  spits  are  turning." 

We  must  present  our  readers  with  another  quota- 
tion from  an  old  ballad,  entitled  "  Time's  Alteration  ; 
or,  The  Old  Man's  Rehearsal,  what  brave  dayes  he 
knew  a  great  while  agone,  when  his  old  ca])  was 
new,"  which  appears  to  have  been  written  after 
the  times  of  the  Commonwealth,  And  this  ex- 
tract we  are  induced  to  add  to  those  which  have 
gone  before,  because,  though  it  deals  with  precisely 
the  same  subjects,  it  speaks  of  them  as  of  things 
gone  by,  and  is  written  in  a  tone  of  lamentation,  in 
which  it  is  one  of  the  purposes  of  this  chapter  to 
call  upon  our  readers  to  join.  We  are  sorry  we 
cannot  give  them  directions  as  to  the  tune  to  which 
it  should  be  sung,  —  further  than  that  it  is  obviously 
unsuited  to  that  of  the  "  Delights  of  the  Bottle," 
prescribed  for  the  joyous  ballad  from  which  we 
first  quoted  on  this  subject ;  and  that,  whatever  may 
be  the  tune,  we  are  clear  that  the  direction  as  to 
time  should  be  the  same  as  that  which  Mr.  Hood 
prefixes  to  his  song  of  the  Guildhall  Giants  ;  namely, 
"  Dinner-time  and  mournful "  :  — 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  5 1  , 

"  A  man  might  then  behold,  * 

At  Christmas  in  each  hall,  \ 

Good  fires  to  curb  the  cold,  ] 

And  meat  for  great  and  small ;  '', 

The  neighbours  were  friendly  bidden, 

And  all  had  welcome  true, 
The  poor  from  the  gates  were  not  chidden, 

When  this  old  cap  was  new. 

"  Black-jacks  to  every  man 

Were  fill'd  with  wine  and  beer  ; 
No  pewter  pot  nor  can 

In  those  days  did  appear  ; 
Good  cheer  in  a  nobleman's  house 

Was  counted  a  seemly  shew;  1 

We  wanted  no  brawn  nor  souse,  ! 

When  this  old  cap  was  new." 

Can  our  readers  bear,  after  this  sad  ditty,  to  listen 
to  the  enumeration  of  good  things  described  by 
Whistlecraft  to  have  been  served  up  at  King 
Arthur's  table  on  Christmas  day?  If  the  list  be 
authentic,  there  is  the  less  reason  to  wonder  at 
the  feats  of  courage  and  strength  performed  by 
the  Knights  of  the  Round  Table. 

"  They  served  up  salmon,  venison,  and  wild  boars. 
By  hundreds,  and  by  dozens,  and  by  scores. 

"  Hogsheads  of  honey,  kilderkins  of  mustard. 

Muttons,  and  fatted  beeves,  and  bacon  swine  ; 
Herons  and  bitterns,  peacocks,  swan,  and  bustard, 

Teal,  mallard,  pigeons,  widgeons,  and,  in  fine. 
Plum-puddings,  pancakes,  apple-pies,  and  custard. 

And  therewithal  they  drank  good  Gascon  wine. 
With  mead,  and  ale,  and  cider  of  our  own  ; 
For  porter,  punch,  and  negus  were  not  known." 


52  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

But  we  cannot  pursue  this  matter  further.  It  is 
not  to  be  treated  with  any  degree  of  calmness  be- 
fore dinner,  and  we  have  not  dined.  We  must 
proceed  to  less  trying  parts  of  our  subject. 

Of  the  earnest  manner  in  which  our  ancestors 
set  about  the  celebration  of  this  festival,  the  mock 
ceremonial  with  which  they  illustrated  it,  the  quaint 
humors  which  they  let  loose  under  its  inspiration, 
and  the  spirit  of  fellowship  which  brought  all  classes 
of  men  within  the  range  of  its  beneficent  provisions, 
we  have  a  large  body  of  scattered  evidence,  to  be 
gleaned  out  of  almost  every  species  of  existing 
record,  from  the  early  days  of  the  Norman  dynasty 
down  to  the  times  of  the  Commonwealth.  The  tales 
of  chroniclers,  the  olden  ballads,  the  rolls  of  courts, 
and  the  statute-book  of  the  land,  all  contribute  to 
furnish  the  materials  from  which  a  revival  of  the  old 
pageantry  must  be  derived,  if  men  should  ever  again 
find  time  to  be  as  merry  as  their  fathers  were. 

The  numberless  local  customs  of  which  the  still 
remaining  tradition  is  almost  the  sole  record,  and 
which  added  each  its  small  contingent  to  the 
aggregate  of  commemoration,  would  certainly  ren- 
der it  a  somewhat  difiicult  matter  to  restore  the 
festival  in  its  integrity ;  and,  to  be  very  candid 
with  our  readers,  we  believe  we  may  as  well  confess, 
at  the  onset,  what  will  be  very  apparent  to  them 
before  we  have  done,  that  many  of  the  Christmas 
observances  (whether  general  or  local)  are  to  be 
recommended  to  their  notice  rather  as  curious  pic- 


THE   CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  53 

tures  of  ancient  manners  than  as  being  at  all  worthy 
of  imitation  by  us  who  "  are  wiser  in  our  genera- 
tion." Sooth  to  say,  we  dare  not  let  our  zeal  for 
our  subject  lead  us  into  an  unqualified  approbation 
of  all  the  doings  which  it  will  be  our  business  to 
record  in  these  pages,  though  they  seem  to  have 
made  all  ranks  of  people  very  happy  in  other  days ; 

—  and  that  is  no  mean  test  of  the  value  of  any 
institution.  Really  earnest  as  we  are  in  the  wish 
that  the  sentmient  of  the  season  could  be  restored 
in  its  amplitude,  we  fear  that  many  of  the  fooleries 
by  which  it  exhibited  itself  could  not  be  gravely 
proposed  as  worthy  amusements  for  a  nation  of 
philosophers. 

Still  these  very  absurdities  furnish  the  strongest 
evidences  of  the  right   good-will  with  which  men 

—  ay,  grave  and  learned  men  —  surrendered  them- 
selves to  the  merry  spirit  of  the  time,  of  that  en- 
tire abandonment  which  forgot  to  make  a  reservation 
of  their  outward  dignities  and  gave  them  courage 
to  "play  the  fool."  Our  readers  need  scarcely  be 
told  that  it  must  be  a  man  of  a  very  strong  mind^ 
or  a  man  who  could  not  help  it,  who  should  dare 
to  make  a  jack-pudding  of  himself  in  these  days, 
when  all  his  fellows  are  walking  about  the  world 
with  telescopes  in  their  hands  and  quadrants  in 
their  pockets.  No  doubt  it  would  have  a  some- 
what ridiculous  effect  to-day  to  see  the  members 
of  the  bar  dancing  a  galliard  or  a  coranto,  in 
full  costume,  before  the  Benchers,  notwithstanding 


54  THE   BOOK   OF    CHRISTiMAS. 

that  certain  ancient  forms  are  still  retained  in  their 
halls  which  have  all  the  absurdity  of  the  exploded 
ones  without  any  of  their  fun  ;  and  unquestionably 
we  should  think  it  rather  strange  to  see  a  respect- 
able gentleman  capering  through  the  streets  on  a 
pasteboard  hobby-horse,  —  in  lieu  of  the  figurative 
hobby-horses  on  which  most  men  still  exhibit,  —  al- 
though even  that,  we  think,  would  offer  an  object 
less  ungracious  than  a  child  with  an  anxious  brow 
and  "spectacles  on  nose."  The  great  wisdom  of 
the  world  is,  we  presume,  one  of  the  natural  con- 
sequences of  its  advancing  age  ;  and  though  we  are 
quite  conscious  that  some  of  its  former  pranks 
would  be  very  unbecoming,  now  that  it  is  getting 
into  years,  and  "  knows  so  much  as  it  does,"  yet  we 
are  by  no  means  sure  that  we  should  not  have  been 
well  content  to  have  our  lot  cast  in  the  days  when 
it  was  somewhat  younger.  They  must  have  been 
very  pleasant  times  !  Certain  it  is  that  the  laugh  of 
the  humbler  classes,  and  of  the  younger  classes, 
would  be  all  the  heartier,  that  it  was  echoed  by  the 
powerful  and  the  aged ;  the  mirth  of  the  ignorant 
more  free  and  genial,  that  the  learned  thought  no 
scorn  of  it.  For  all  that  appears,  too,  the  dignities 
of  those  days  suffered  no  detriment  by  their  sur- 
render to  the  spirit  of  the  times,  but  seem  to  have 
resumed  all  their  functions  and  privileges,  when  it 
had  exhausted  itself,  with  unimpaired  effect.  Phi- 
losophers had  due  reverence,  without  erecting  them- 
selves always  on  stilts  for  the  purpose  of  attracting 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  55 

it;  and  names  have  come  down  to  us  which  are 
esteemed  the  names  of  grave  and  learned  and  wise 
men,  —  even  in  this  grave  and  learned  and  wise 
age,  —  who,  nevertheless,  appear  in  their  own  to 
have  conducted  themselves  at  times  very  like 
children. 

From  the  royal  Household-Books  which  exist,  and 
from  the  Household-Books  of  noble  families  (some 
of  which  have  been  printed  for  better  preservation), 
as  also  from  the  other  sources  to  which  we  have 
alluded,  Mr.  Sandys,  in  the  very  valuable  introduc- 
tion to  his  collection  of  Christmas  carols,  already 
mentioned,  has  brought  together  a  body  of  valuable 
information,  —  both  as  to  the  stately  ceremonies  and 
popular  observances  by  which  the  season  continued 
to  be  illustrated,  from  an  early  period  up  to  the 
time  of  its  decline,  amid  the  austerities  of  the  civil 
war.  To  this  careful  compilation  we  shall  be  oc- 
casionally indebted  for  some  curious  particulars 
which  had  escaped  ourselves,  amid  the  multiplied 
and  unconnected  sources  from  which  our  notes  for 
this  volume  had  to  be  made.  To  those  who  would 
go  deeper  into  the  antiquarian  part  of  the  subject 
than  suits  the  purpose  of  a  popular  volume,  we  can 
recommend  that  work,  as  containing  the  most 
copious  and  elaborate  synopsis  of  the  existing  infor- 
mation connected  therewith  which  we  have  found 
in  the  course  of  our  own  researches.  It  would  be 
impossible,  however,  in  a  paper  of  that  length  —  or, 
indeed,  in  a  volume  of  any  moderate  size  —  to  give 


56  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

an  account  of  all  the  numerous  superstitions  and  ob- 
servances of  which  traces  are  found,  in  an  extended 
inquiry,  to  exist,  —  throwing  light  upon  each  other 
and  contributing  to  the  complete  history  of  the  fes- 
tival. We  have  therefore  gleaned  from  all  quarters 
those  which  appear  to  be  the  most  picturesque  and 
whose  relation  is  the  most  obvious,  with  a  view,  as 
much  as  possible,  of  generalizing  the  subject  and  pre- 
senting its  parts  in  relation  to  an  intelligible  whole. 

As  we  shall  have  occasion,  in  our  second  part,  to 
speak  of  those  peculiar  feelings  and  customs  by 
which  each  of  the  several  days  of  the  Christmas 
festival  is  specially  illustrated,  we  shall  not  at  pres- 
ent pause  to  go  into  any  of  the  details  of  the  sub- 
ject, although  continually  tempted  to  do  so  by 
their  connection  with  the  observations  which  we  are 
called  upon  to  make.  The  purpose  of  the  present 
chapter  is  rather  to  insist  generally,  and  by  some  of 
its  more  striking  features,  upon  the  high  and  length- 
ened festivity  with  which  this  portion  of  the  year 
was  so  long  and  so  universally  welcomed,  and  to 
seek  some  explanation  of  the  causes  to  which  the 
diminution  of  that  spirit,  and  the  almost  total  neg- 
lect of  its  ancient  forms,  are  to  be  ascribed. 

As  early  as  the  twelfth  century  we  have  accounts 
of  the  spectacles  and  pageants  by  which  Christmas 
was  welcomed  at  the  court  of  the  then  monarch 
Henry  II. ;  and  from  this  period  the  wardrobe 
rolls  and  other  Household-Books  of  the  English 
kings  furnish  continual  evidences  of  the  costly  prepa- 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  57 

rations  made  for  the  festival.  Many  extracts  from 
these  books  have  been  made  by  Mr.  Sandys  and 
others,  from  which  it  appears  that  the  mirth  of  the 
celebration,  and  the  lavish  profusion  expended  upon 
it,  were  on  the  increase  from  year  to  year,  except- 
ing during  that  distracted  period  of  England's  his- 
tory when  these,  like  all  other  gracious  arrangements 
and  social  relations,  were  disturbed  by  the  unholy 
contests  between  the  houses  of  the  rival  roses. 
There  is,  however,  a  beautiful  example  of  the  sacred 
influence  of  this  high  festival  mentioned  by  Turner 
in  his  History  of  England,  showing  that  its  hal- 
lowed presence  had  power,  even  in  those  warlike 
days,  to  silence  even  the  voice  of  war,  —  of  all  war 
save  that  most  impious  of  (what  are  almost  always 
impious)  wars,  civil  war.  During  the  siege  of  Or- 
leans, in  1428,  he  says  :  "The  solemnities  and  fes- 
tivities of  Christmas  gave  a  short  interval  of  repose. 
The  English  lords  requested  of  the  French  com- 
manders that  they  might  have  a  night  of  minstrelsy, 
with  trumpets  and  clarions.  This  was  granted  ;  and 
the  horrors  of  war  were  suspended  by  melodies, 
that  were  felt  to  be  delightful." 

In  the  peaceful  reign  of  Henry  VH.,  the  nation, 
on  emerging  from  that  long  and  unnatural  strug- 
gle, appears  to  have  occupied  itself,  as  did  the  wise 
monarch,  in  restoring  as  far  as  was  possible,  and 
by  all  means,  its  disrupted  ties,  and  rebaptizing  its 
apostate  feelings ;  and  during  this  period  the  fes- 
tival    of    Christmas   was    restored     with    revived 


58  THE   BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

splendor  and  observed  with  renewed  zeal.  The 
Household-Book  of  that  sovereign,  preserved  in 
the  chapter-house  at  Westminster,  conjtains  numer- 
ous items  for  disbursements  connected  with  the 
Christmas  diversions,  in  proof  of  this  fact. 

The  reign  of  Henry  VIH.  was  a  reign  of  jousts 
and  pageants  till  it  became  a  reign  of  blood ;  and 
accordingly  the  Christmas  pageantries  prepared  for 
the  entertainment  of  that  execrable  monarch  were 
distinguished  by  increased  pomp  and  furnished  at 
a  more  profuse  expenditure.  The  festivities  of 
Eltham  and  Greenwich  figure  in  the  pages  of  the 
old  chroniclers ;  and  the  account  books  at  the 
chapter-house  abound  in  payments  made  in  this 
reign,  for  purposes  connected  with  the  revels  of 
the  season. 

We  shall  by  and  by  have  occasion  to  present 
our  readers  with  some  curious  particulars,  illustra- 
tive of  the  cost  and  pains  bestowed  upon  this  court 
celebration  during  the  short  reign  of  the  young 
monarch  Edward  VI. 

Not  all  the  gloom  and  terror  of  the  sanguinary 
Mary's  reign  were  able  entirely  to  extinguish  the 
spirit  of  Christmas  rejoicing  throughout  the  land, 
though  the  court  itself  was  too  much  occupied  with 
its  auto-da-f^  spectacles  to  have  much  time  for 
pageants  of  less  interest. 

Our  readers,  we  think,  need  scarcely  be  told  that 
the  successor  of  this  stern  and  miserable  queen 
(and,   thank  God  !   the   last  of  that   bad  family) 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  59 

was  sure  to  seize  upon  the  old  pageantries,  as  she 
did  upon  every  other  vehicle  which  could  in  any 
way  be  made  to  minister  to  her  intolerable  vanity, 
or  by  which  a  public  exhibition  might  be  made, 
before  the  slaves  whom  she  governed,  of  her  own 
vulgar  and  brutal  mind.  Under  all  the  forms  of 
ancient  festival  observance,  some  offering  was  pre- 
sented to  this  insatiable  and  disgusting  appetite,  — 
and  that,  too,  by  men  entitled  to  stand  erect,  by 
their  genius  or  their  virtues,  yet  whose  knees  were 
rough  with  kneeling  before  as  worthless  an  idol  as 
any  wooden  god  that  the  most  senseless  superstition 
ever  set  up  for  worship.  From  all  the  altars  which 
the  court  had  reared  to  old  Father  Christmas  of 
yore,  a  cloud  of  incense  was  poured  into  the  royal 
closet,  enough  to  choke  anything  but  a  woman,  — 
that  woman  a  queen,  and  that  queen  a  Tudor. 
The  festival  was  preserved,  and  even  embellished ; 
but  the  saint,  as  far  as  the  court  was  concerned,  was 
changed.  However,  the  example  of  the  festivity  to 
the  people  was  the  same ;  and  the  land  was  a 
merry  land,  and  the  Christmas  time  a  merry  time, 
throughout  its  length  and  breadth,  in  the  days  of 
Queen  Elizabeth. 

Nay,  out  of  this  very  anxiety  to  minister  to  the 
craving  vanity  of  a  weak  and  worthless  woman  — 
the  devices  to  which  it  gave  rise  and  the  laborers 
whom  it  called  into  action  —  have  arisen  results 
which  are  not  amongst  the  least  happy  or  important 
of  those  by  its  connection  with  which  the  Christ- 


6o  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

mas  festival  stands  recommended.  Under  these 
impulses,  the  old  dramatic  entertainments  —  of 
which  we  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  more  at 
large  hereafter  —  took  a  higher  character  and  as- 
sumed a  more  consistent  form.  The  first  regular 
English  tragedy,  called  "  Ferrex  and  Porrex,  "  and 
the  entertainment  of  "  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle," 
were  both  productions  of  the  early  period  of  this 
queen's  reign ;  and  amid  the  crowd  of  her  wor- 
shippers (alas  that  it  is  so  !)  rose  up  —  with  the 
star  upon  his  forehead  which  is  to  burn  for  all 
time  —  the  very  first  of  all  created  beings,  William 
Shakespeare.  These  are  amongst  the  strange 
anomalies  which  the  world,  as  it  is  constituted,  so 
often  presents,  and  jmist  present  at  times,  consti- 
tute it  how  we  will.  Shakespeare  doing  homage  to 
Queen  Elizabeth  !  The  loftiest  genius  and  the 
noblest  heart  that  have  yet  walked  this  earth,  in  a 
character  merely  human,  bowing  down  before  this 
woman  with  the  soul  of  a  milliner  and  no  heart  at 
all !  The  "  bright  particular  star "  humbling  it- 
self before  the  temporal  crown  !  The  swayer 
of  hearts,  the  ruler  of  all  men's  minds,  in  virtue 
of  his  own  transcendent  nature,  recognizing  the 
supremacy  of  this  overgrown  child,  because  she 
presided  over  the  temporalities  of  a  half  eman- 
cipated nation,  by  rights  derived  to  her  from  others 
and  sanctioned  by  no  qualities  of  her  own  ! 

And   yet   if  to  the  low  passions  of  this  vulgar 
queen,  and  the  patronage  which  they  led  her  to  ex- 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  6l 

tend  to  all  who  could  best  minister  to  their  gratifi- 
cation, we  owe  any  part  of  that  development  by 
which  this  consummate  genius  expanded  itself, 
then  do  we  stand  in  some  degree  indebted  to  her 
for  one  of  the  greatest  boons  which  has  been  be- 
stowed upon  the  human  race ;  and  as  between 
her  and  mankind  in  general  (for  the  accounts  be- 
tween her  and  individuals,  and  still  more  that 
between  her  and  God,  stand  uninfluenced  by 
this  item)  there  is  a  large  amount  of  good  to  be 
placed  to  her  credit.  Against  her  follies  of  a  day 
there  would  have  to  be  set  her  promotion  of  a  wis- 
dom whose  lessons  are  for  all  time ;  against  the 
tears  which  she  caused  to  flow,  the  human  anguish 
which  she  inflicted,  and  the  weary,  pining  hours  of 
the  captives  whom  she  made,  would  stand  the  tears 
of  thousands  dried  away,  many  and  many  an  aching 
heart  beguiled  of  its  sorrow,  and  many  a  captive 
taught  to  feel  that 

"  Stone  walls  do  not  a  prison  make, 
Nor  iron  bars  a  cage  ; " 

all  the  chords  of  human  feeling  touched  with  a 
hand  that  soothes  as  did  the  harp  of  David,  all 
the  pages  of  human  suffering  stored  with  consola- 
tions ! 

To  any  one  who  will  amuse  himself  by  looking 
over  the  Miracle  Plays  and  Masques,  which  were 
replaced  by  the  more  regular  forms  of  dramatic 
entertainment,  and  will  then  regale  himself  by  the 


62  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

perusal  of  "  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle  "  or  "  Fer- 
rex  and  Porrex,"  which  came  forward  with  higher 
pretensions  in  the  beginning  of  this  reign,  there 
will  appear  reason  to  be  sufficiently  astonished  at 
the  rapid  strides  by  which  dramatic  excellence  was 
attained  before  its  close  and  during  the  next,  even 
without  taking  Shakespeare  into  the  account  at 
all.  But  when  we  turn  to  the  marvels  of  this  great 
magician,  and  find  that  in  his  hands  not  only  were 
the  forms  of  the  drama  perfected,  but  that,  with- 
out impeding  the  action  or  impairing  the  interest 
invested  in  those  forms,  and  besides  his  excursions 
into  the  regions  of  imagination  and  his  creations 
out  of  the  natural  world  he  has  touched  every 
branch  of  human  knowledge  and  struck  into  every 
train  of  human  thought;  that  without  learning,  in 
the  popular  sense,  he  has  arrived  at  all  the  results 
and  embodied  all  the  wisdom  which  learning  is 
only  useful  if  it  teaches ;  that  we  can  be  placed 
in  no  imaginable  circumstances  and  under  the  in- 
fluence of  no  possible  feelings  of  which  we  do 
not  find  exponents,  —  and  such  exponents  !  —  "in 
sweetest  music,"  on  his  page ;  and  above  all, 
when  we  find  that  all  the  final  morals  to  be  drawn 
from  all  his  writings  are  hopeful  ones,  that  all  the 
lessons  which  all  his  agents  —  joy  or  sorrow,  pain 
or  pleasure  —  are  made  alike  to  teach  are  lessons 
of  goodness  —  it  is  impossible  to  attribute  all  this 
to  aught  but  a  revelation,  or  ascribe  to  him  any 
character  but  that  of  a  prophet.     Shakespeare  knew 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  63 

more  than  any  other  mere  man  ever  knew;  and 
none  can  tell  how  that  knowledge  came  to  him. 
"All  men's  business  and  bosoms  "  lay  open  to  him. 
We  should  not  like  to  have  him  quoted  against 
us  on  any  subject.  Nothing  escaped  him,  and  he 
never  made  a  mistake  (we  are  not  speaking  of 
technical  ones).  He  was  the  universal  interpreter 
into  language  of  the  human  mind,  and  he  knew 
all  the  myriad  voices  by  which  nature  speaks.  He 
reminds  us  of  the  vizier  in  the  Eastern  story,  who  is 
said  to  have  understood  the  languages  of  all  animals. 
The  utterings  of  the  elements,  the  voices  of  beasts 
and  of  birds,  Shakespeare  could  translate  into  the 
language  of  men  ;  and  the  thoughts  and  sentiments 
of  men  he  rendered  into  words  as  sweet  as  the  sing- 
ing of  birds.  If  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  had  been 
illustrated  only  by  the  advent  of  this  great  spirit,  it 
might  itself  have  accounted  for  some  portion  of  that 
prejudice  which  (illustrated,  as  in  fact  it  was,  by 
much  that  was  great  and  noble)  blinds  men  still 
—  or  induces  them  to  shut  their  eyes  —  to  the  true 
personal  claims  and  character  of  that  queen. 

But  we  are  digressing,  again,  as  who  does  not 
when  the  image  of  Shakespeare  comes  across  him  ? 
To  return  :  — 

The  court  celebrations  of  Christmas  were  ob- 
served throughout  the  reign  of  the  first  James ;  and 
the  Prince  Charles  himself  was  an  occasional  per- 
former in  the  pageantries  prepared  for  the  occasion, 
at  great  cost.     But  at  no  period  do  they  appear  to 


64  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

have  been  more  zealously  sought  after,  or  performed 
with  more  splendor,  than  during  that  which  imme- 
diately preceded  the  persecution,  from  whose  effects 
they  have  never  since  recovered  into  anything  like 
their  former  lustihood.  In  the  early  years  of  Charles 
the  First's  reign,  the  court  pageants  of  this  season 
were  got  up  with  extraordinary  brilliancy,  —  the  king 
with  the  lords  of  his  court,  and  the  queen  with  her 
ladies,  frequently  taking  parts  therein.  This  was  the 
case  in  1630-31 ;  and  at  the  Christmas  of  1632-33 
the  queen,  says  Sandys,  "got  up  a  pastoral  in 
Somerset  House,  in  which  it  would  seem  she  herself 
took  a  part.  There  were  masques  at  the  same  time, 
independently  of  this  performance,  the  cost  of  which 
considerably  exceeded  ;^2,ooo,  besides  that  portion 
of  the  charge  which  was  borne  by  the  office  of  the 
revels  and  charged  to  the  accounts  of  that  depart- 
ment." In  the  same  year,  we  learn  that  a  grant  of 
;^450  was  made  to  George  Kirke,  Esq.,  gentleman 
of  the  robes,  for  the  masking  attire  of  the  king  and 
his  party.  In  1637  there  is  a  warrant,  under  the 
privy  seal,  to  the  same  George  Kirke  for  ^150,  to 
provide  the  masking  dress  of  the  king ;  and,  in  the 
same  year,  another  to  Edmund  Tavemer  for  ;^  1,400 
towards  the  expenses  of  a  masque  to  be  presented  at 
Whitehall  on  the  ensuing  Twelfth  Night.  We  have 
selected  these  from  similar  examples  furnished  by 
Sandys,  in  order  to  give  our  readers  some  idea  of 
the  sums  expended  in  these  entertainments, 
which   sums   will   appear   very  considerable   when 


THE    CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  65 

estimated  by  the  difference  between  the  value  of 
money  in  our  days  and  that  of  two  hundred  years 
ago.  Several  of  the  masques  presented  at  court  dur- 
ing this  reign,  and  the  preceding  ones,  were  written 
by  Ben  Jonson. 

During  the  whole  of  this  time,  the  forms  of 
court  ceremonial  appear  to  have  been  aped,  and  the 
royal  establishments  imitated  as  far  as  possible,  by 
the  more  powerful  nobles ;  and  the  masques  and 
pageantries  exhibited  for  the  royal  amusement  were 
accordingly  reproduced  or  rivalled  by  them  at  their 
princely  mansions  in  the  country.  Corporate  and 
other  public  bodies  caught  the  infection  all  over 
the  land ;  and  each  landed  proprietor  and  country 
squire  endeavored  to  enact  such  state  in  the  eyes 
of  his  own  retainers,  as  his  means  would  allow. 
The  sports  and  festivities  of  the  season  were  every- 
where taken  under  the  protection  of  the  lord  of  the 
soil ;  and  all  classes  of  his  dependants  had  a  cus- 
tomary claim  upon  the  hospitalities  which  he  pre- 
pared for  the  occasion.  The  masques  of  the  court 
and  of  the  nobles  were  imitated  in  the  mummings 
of  the  people,  —  of  which  we  give  a  representation 
here,  and  which  we  shall  have  occasion  particularly 
to  describe  hereafter,  —  they  having  survived  the 
costly  pageants  of  which  they  were  the  humble  rep- 
resentatives. The  festival  was  thus  rendered  a 
universal  one,  and  its  amusements  brought  within 
the  reach  of  the  indigent  and  the  remote.  The 
peasant,  and  even  the  pauper,  were  made,  as  it  were, 
5 


66  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

once  a  year  sharers  in  the  mirth  of  their  immediate 
lord,  and  even  of  the  monarch  himself.  The  labor- 
ing classes  had  enlarged  privileges  during  this  sea- 
son, not  only  by  custom,  but  by  positive  enactment ; 
and  restrictive  acts  of  Parliament,  by  which  they 
were  prohibited  from  certain  games  at  other  periods, 
contained  exceptions  in  favor  of  the  Christmas- 
tide.  Nay,  folly  was,  as  it  were,  crowned,  and  dis- 
order had  a  license  !  Sandys  quotes  from  Leland 
the  form  of  a  proclamation  given  in  his  "  Itine- 
rary "  as  having  been  made  by  the  sheriff  of  York, 
wherein  it  is  declared  that  all  "  thieves,  dice-players, 
carders  "  (with  some  other  characters  by  name  that 
are  usually  repudiated  by  the  guardians  of  order) 
"  and  all  other  unthrifty  folke,  be  welcome  to  the 
towne,  whether  they  come  late  or  early,  att  the  rev- 
erence of  the  high  feast  of  Youle,  till  the  twelve 
dayes  be  passed."  The  terms  of  this  proclamation 
were,  no  doubt,  not  intended  to  be  construed  in  a 
grave  and  literal  sense,  but  were  probably  meant  to 
convey  something  like  a  satire  upon  the  unbounded 
license  of  the  season  which  they  thus  announce. 

There  are  very  pleasant  evidences  of  the  care 
which  was  formerly  taken,  in  high  quarters,  that  the 
poor  should  not  be  robbed  of  their  share  in  this  fes- 
tival. The  yearly  increasing  splendor  of  the  royal 
celebrations  appears  at  one  time  to  have  threatened 
that  result,  by  attracting  the  country  gentlemen 
from  their  own  seats,  and  thereby  withdrawing  them 
from  the   presidency  of  those    sports  which  were 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  67 

likely  to  languish  in  their  absence.  Accordingly,  we 
find  an  order,  in  1589,  issued  to  the  gentlemen  of 
Norfolk  and  Suffolk,  commanding  them  "  to  depart 
from  London  before  Christmas,  and  to  repair  to 
their  countries,  there  to  keep  hospitality  amongst 
their  neighbors."  And  similar  orders  appear  to 
have  been  from  time  to  time  necessary,  and  from 
time  to  time  repeated. 

Amongst  those  bodies  who  were  distinguished  for 
the  zeal  of  their  Christmas  observances,  honorable 
mention  may  be  made  of  the  two  EngUsh  universi- 
ties ;  and  we  shall  have  occasion  hereafter  to  show 
that  traces  of  the  old  ceremonials  linger  still  in 
those  their  ancient  haunts.  But  the  reader  who  is 
unacquainted  with  this  subject  would  scarcely  be 
prepared  to  look  for  the  most  conspicuous  celebra- 
tion of  these  revels,  with  all  their  antics  and  mum- 
meries, in  the  grave  and  dusty  retreats  of  the  law. 
Such,  however,  was  the  case.  The  lawyers  beat 
the  doctors  hollow.  Their  ancient  halls  have  rung 
with  the  sounds  of  a  somewhat  barbarous  revelry ; 
and  the  walls  thereof,  had  they  voices,  could  tell 
many  an  old  tale,  which  the  present  occupants  might 
not  consider  as  throwing  any  desirable  light  upon 
the  historical  dignities  of  the  body  to  which  they 
belong.  Our  readers,  no  doubt,  remember  a  certain 
scene  in  "  Guy  Mannering,"  wherein  the  farmer 
Dinmont  and  Colonel  Mannering  are  somewhat  in- 
considerately intruded  upon  the  carousals  of  Mr. 
Counsellor   Pleydell   at   his   tavern   in  the  city  of 


68  THE   BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

Edinburgh  and  find  that  worthy  lawyer  in  what 
are  called  his  "altitudes,"  being  deeply  engaged 
in  the  ancient  and  not  very  solemn  pastime  of 
"  High  Jinks."  Their  memory  may  probably  pre- 
sent the  counsellor  "  enthroned  as  a  monarch  in 
an  elbow-chair  placed  on  the  dining-table,  his 
scratch-wig  on  one  side,  his  head  crowned  with  a 
bottle-slider,  his  eye  leering  with  an  expression  be- 
twixt fun  and  the  effects  of  wine,"  and  recall,  as- 
sisted by  the  jingle,  some  of  the  high  discourse  of 
his  surrounding  court :  — 

"  Where  is  Gerunto  now  ?  and  what 's  become  of  him  ? " 
"  Gerunto  's  drowned,  because  he  could  not  swim,"  etc. 

Now,  if  our  readers  shall  be  of  opinion  —  as 
Colonel  Mannering  and  the  farmer  were  —  that 
the  attitude  and  the  occupation  were  scarcely  con- 
sistent with  the  dignity  of  a  gentleman  whom  they 
had  come  to  consult  on  very  grave  matters,  we  may 
be  as  much  to  blame  as  was  the  tavern- waiter  on 
that  occasion,  in  introducing  them  to  the  revels  of 
the  Inns  of  Court.  We  will  do  what  we  can  to 
soften  such  censure  by  stating  that  there  certainly 
appears  at  times  to  have  arisen  a  suspicion,  in  the 
minds  of  a  portion  of  the  profession,  that  the  wig 
and  gown  were  not  figuring  to  the  best  possible 
advantage  on  these  occasions.  P"or,  in  the  reign 
of  the  first  James,  we  find  an  order  issued  by  the 
benchers  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  whereby  the  "under 
barristers  were,  by  decimation,  put  out  of  commons 


THE    CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  69 

because  the  whole  bar  offended  by  not  dancing  on 
Candlemas  Day  preceding,  according  to  the  ancient 
order  of  the  society,  when  the  judges  were  pres- 
ent ; "  and  this  order  is  accompanied  by  a  threat 
"  that,  if  the  fault  were  repeated,  they  should  be 
fined  or  disbarred." 

There  seems  to  have  been  a  contest  between  the 
four  Inns  of  Court  as  to  which  should  get  up  these 
pageantries  with  the  greatest  splendor,  and  occa- 
sionally a  struggle  between  the  desire  of  victory 
and  the  disinclination,  or  perhaps  inability,  to  fur- 
nish the  heavy  cost  at  which  that  victory  was  to  be 
secured.  Most  curious  particulars  on  these  subjects 
are  furnished  by  the  accompt-books  of  the  houses  : 
by  the  "  Gesta  Grayorum"  (which  was  published 
for  the  purpose  of  describing  a  celebrated  Christmas 
kept  at  Gray's  Inn  in  1594,  and  had  its  title  imi- 
tated from  the  then  popular  work  called  the  "  Gesta 
Romanorum ") ;  by  Dugdale,  in  his  "  Origines 
Juridiciales,"  ;  and  by  Nichols,  in  his  "  Progresses 
of  Queen  Elizabeth."  For  some  time  Lincoln's 
Inn  appears  to  have  carried  it  all  its  own  way, 
having  been  first  on  the  ground.  The  Christmas 
celebrations  seem  to  have  been  kept  by  this  society 
from  as  early  a  period  as  the  reign  of  Henry  VI. ; 
although  it  was  not  until  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII. 
that  they  began  to  grow  into  celebrity,  or  at  least 
that  we  have  any  account  of  their  arrangements. 
When,  however,  the  societies  of  the  two  Temples, 
and   that  of  Gray's   Inn,  began,  with  a  laudable 


70  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

jealousy,  to  contest  the  palm  of  splendor,  the  ne- 
cessary expenditure  appears  occasionally  to  have 
"  given  them  pause."  Accordingly,  they  held  anx- 
ious meetings,  at  the  approach  of  the  season,  to 
decide  the  important  question  whether  Christmas 
should  be  kept  that  year  or  not ;  and  one  of  the 
registers  of  the  society  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  bearing 
date  the  27th  of  November,  in  the  twenty-second 
year  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  contains  the  follow- 
ing order  :  "  Yt  is  agreed  that  if  the  two  Temples  do 
kepe  Chrystemas,  then  Chrystemas  to  be  kept  here ; 
and  to  know  this,  the  Steward  of  the  House  ys 
commanded  to  get  knowledge,  and  to  advertise  my 
master  by  the  next  day  at  night." 

There  is  a  curious  story  told  in  Baker's  Chron- 
icle of  an  awkward  predicament  into  which  the 
society  of  Gray's  Inn  brought  themselves  by  a  play 
which  they  enacted  amongst  their  Christmas  revels 
of  1527.  The  subject  of  this  play  was  to  the  effect 
that  "  Lord  Governance  was  ruled  by  Dissipation 
and  Negligence ;  by  whose  evil  order  Lady  Public- 
Weal  was  put  from  Governance."  Now,  if  these 
gentlemen  did  not  intend,  by  this  somewhat  deli- 
cate moral,  any  insinuation  against  the  existing 
state  of  things  (which,  being  lawyers,  and  there- 
fore courtiers,  there  is  good  motive  to  believe  they 
did  not),  it  is,  at  all  events,  certain  that,  as  lawyers, 
they  ought  to  have  known  better  how  to  steer  clear 
of  all  offence  to  weak  consciences.  That  respectable 
minister,  Cardinal  Wolsey,  felt  himself  (as  we  think 


THE   CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  7 1 

he  had  good  right  to  do)  greatly  scandalized  at 
what,  if  not  designed,  was,  by  accident,  a  palpa- 
ble hit ;  and,  in  order  to  teach  the  gentlemen  of 
Gray's  Inn  that  they  were  responsible  for  wounds 
given,  if  they  happened  to  shoot  arrows  in  the  dark, 
he  divested  the  ingenious  author.  Sergeant  Roe, 
of  his  coif,  and  committed  him  to  the  Fleet,  to- 
gether with  one  of  the  actors,  of  the  name  of  Moyle, 
—  in  order  to  afford  them  leisure  for  furnishing  him 
with  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  matter. 

In  Dugdale's  "  Origines  Juridiciales,"  we  have  an 
account  of  a  magnificent  Christmas  which  was  kept 
at  the  Inner  Temple,  in  the  fourth  year  of  Queen 
Elizabeth's  reign ;  at  which  the  Lord  Robert 
Dudley,  afterwards  Earl  of  Leicester,  presided, 
under  the  mock-title  of  Palaphilos,  Prince  of  Sophie, 
High  Constable  Marshal  of  the  Knights  Templars, 
and  Patron  of  the  honorable  order  of  Pegasus. 
A  potentate  with  such  a  title  would  have  looked 
very  foolish  without  a  "  tail ;  "  and  accordingly  he 
had  for  his  master  of  the  game  no  less  a  lawyer 
than  Christopher  Hatton,  afterwards  Lord  Chan- 
cellor of  England,  with  four  masters  of  the  revels, 
a  variety  of  other  officers,  and  fourscore  persons 
forming  a  guard.  Gerard  Leigh,  who  was  so  fortu- 
nate as  to  obtain  the  dignity  of  a  knight  of  Pegasus, 
describes,  as  an  eye-witness,  in  his  "  Accidence  of 
Armorie,"  the  solemn  fooleries  which  were  enacted 
on  the  occasion  by  these  worthies  of  the  sword  and 
of  the  gown. 


72  THE    BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

Of  course,  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  such 
shrewd  courtiers  as  lawyers  commonly  are,  if  they 
had  ever  kept  Christmas  at  all,  should  fail  to  do 
so  during  the  reign  of  this  virgin  queen,  when  its 
celebration  offered  them  such  admirable  opportu- 
nities for  the  administration  of  that  flattery  which 
was  so  agreeable  to  her  Majesty,  and  might  possibly 
be  so  profitable  to  themselves.  We  have  great 
pleasure  in  recording  a  speech  made  by  her  Maj- 
esty on  one  of  these  occasions,  nearly  so  much  as 
two  centuries  and  a  half  ago,  but  which  for  its  great 
excellence  has  come  down  to  our  days.  The  gen- 
tlemen of  Gray's  Inn  (their  wits,  probably,  a  little 
sharpened  by  the  mistake  which  they  had  made  in 
her  father's  time)  had  ventured  upon  a  dramatic 
performance  again  ;  and,  in  the  course  of  a  masque 
which  they  represented  before  the  queen's  Majesty, 
had  administered  to  her  copious  draughts  of  that 
nectar  on  which  her  Majesty's  vanity  was  known  to 
thrive  so  marvellously.  They  appear,  however,  with 
a  very  nice  tact,  to  have  given  her  no  more  of  it  on 
this  occasion  than  was  sufficient  to  put  her  Majesty 
into  spirits,  without  intoxicating  her,  for  by  this 
period  of  her  life  it  took  a  great  deal  of  that  sort  of 
thing  to  intoxicate  the  queen's  Majesty ;  and  the 
effect  was  of  the  pleasantest  kind,  and  could  not 
fail  to  be  most  satisfactory  to  the  gentlemen  of 
Gray's  Inn.  For  after  the  masque  was  finished  (in 
which  we  presume  there  had  been  a  little  dancing 
by  the  lawyers  who,  would,  as  in  duty  bound,  have 


THE    CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  73 

Stood  on  their  wigs  to  please  her  Majesty),  and  on 
the  courtiers  attempting,  in  their  turn,  to  execute  a 
dance,  her  Majesty  was  most  graciously  pleased  to 
exclaim,  "  What !  shall  we  have  bread  and  cheese 
after  a  banquet?  "  —  meaning  thereby,  we  presume, 
to  imply  that  the  courtiers  could  not  hope  to  leap 
as  high  or,  in  any  respect,  to  cut  such  capers  as  the 
lawyers  had  done.  Now,  this  speech  of  the  virgin 
queen  we  have  reported  here  less  for  the  sake  of  any 
intrinsic  greatness  in  the  thought  or  elegance  in 
the  form  than  because,  out  of  a  variety  of  speeches 
by  her  Majesty,  which  have  been  carefully  pre- 
served, we  think  this  is  about  as  good  as  any  other, 
and  has  the  additional  recommendation  (which  so 
few  of  the  others  have)  of  exhibiting  the  virgin 
queen  in  a  good  humor.  And,  further,  because 
having  recorded  the  disgrace  into  which  the  gen- 
tlemen of  Gray's  Inn  danced  themselves,  in  the 
lifetime  of  her  illustrious  father,  it  is  but  right  that 
we  should  likewise  record  the  ample  indemnification 
which  they  must  have  considered  themselves  to  have 
received,  at  the  lips  of  his  virgin  daughter. 

The  celebrations  at  the  Inns  of  Court  were  from 
time  to  time  continued,  down  to  the  period  of  the 
civil  troubles  which  darkened  the  reign  of  Charles  I.  ; 
and  so  lately  as  the  year  1641,  when  they  had  al- 
ready commenced,  we  find  it  recorded  by  Evelyn, 
in  his  Memoirs,  that  he  was  elected  one  of  the 
comptrollers  of  the  Middle  Temple  revellers,  "as  the 
fashion  of  the  young  students  and  gentlemen  was, 


74  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

the  Christmas  being  kept  this  yeare  with  greate 
solemnity."  During  this  reign,  we  discover  the 
several  societies  lessening  their  expenses  by  a  very 
wise  compromise  of  their  disputes  for  supremacy  ; 
for  in  the  eighth  year  thereof  the  four  Inns  of  Court 
provided  a  Christmas  masque  in  conjunction,  for  the 
entertainment  of  the  court,  which  cost  the  startling 
sum  of  ^24,000  of  the  money  of  that  day,  and 
in  return  King  Charles  invited  one  hundred  and 
twenty  gentlemen  of  the  four  Inns  to  a  masque  at 
Whitehall   on  the  Shrove-Tuesday  following. 

That  our  readers  may  form  some  idea  of  the 
kind  of  sports  which  furnished  entertainment  to 
men  of  no  less  pretension  than  Hatton  and  Coke 
and  Crewe,  we  will  extract  for  them  a  few  more 
particulars  of  the  ceremonies  usually  observed  at 
the  grand  Christmases  of  the  Inner  Temple, 
before  quitting  this   part   of  the  subject. 

In  the  first  place,  it  appears  that  on  Christmas 
Eve  there  was  a  banquet  in  the  hall,  at  which  three 
masters  of  the  revels  were  present,  the  oldest  of 
whom,  after  dinner  and  supper,  was  to  sing  a  carol, 
and  to  command  other  gentlemen  to  sing  with  him  ; 
and  in  all  this  we  see  nothing  which  is  not  perfectly 
worthy  of  all  imitation  now.  Then,  on  each  of  the 
twelve  nights,  before  and  after  supper  were  revels 
and  dancing ;  and  if  any  of  these  revels  and  dan- 
cing were  performed  in  company  with  the  fair  sex 
(which,  on  the  face  of  the  evidence,  doth  not  ap- 
pear), then  we  have  none  of  the  objections  to  urge 


THE   CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  75 

against  them  which  we  have  ventured  to  insinuate 
against  the  solemn  buffooneries,  to  which  the  bar 
was  fined  for  refusing  to  surrender  itself,  in  the 
time  of  James  I.  Neither  do  we  find  anything  re- 
pugnant to  our  modern  tastes  in  the  announcement 
that  the  breakfasts  of  the  following  mornings  were 
very  substantial  ones,  consisting  of  brawn,  mustard, 
and  malmsey,  which  the  exhaustion  of  the  previous 
night's  dancing  might  render  necessary;  nor  that 
all  the  courses  were  served  with  music,  which  we 
intend  that  some  of  our  own  shall  be  this  coming 
Christmas.  But  against  most  of  that  which  follows 
we  enter  our  decided  protest,  as  not  only  very 
absurd  in  itself,  but  eminently  calculated  to  spoil  a 
good  dinner. 

On  St.  Stephen's  Day,  we  learn  that,  after  the 
first  course  was  served  in,  the  constable  marshal 
was  wont  to  enter  the  hall  (and  we  think  he  had 
much  better  have  come  in,  and  said  all  he  had  to 
say  beforehand)  bravely  arrayed  with  "3.  fair  rich 
compleat  barneys,  white  and  bright  and  gilt,  with  a 
nest  of  fethers,  of  all  colours,  upon  his  crest  or 
helm,  and  a  gilt  pole  ax  in  his  hand,"  and,  no  doubt, 
thinking  himself  a  prodigiously  fine  fellow.  He 
was  accompanied  by  the  lieutenant  of  the  Tower, 
"armed  with  a  fair  white  armour,"  also  wearing 
"fethers,"  and  "with  a  Hke  pole  ax  in  his  hand," 
and  of  course  also  thinking  himself  a  very  fine  fellow. 
With  them  came  sixteen  trumpeters,  preceded  by 
four  drums  and  fifes,  and   attended  by  four  men 


76  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

clad  in  white  "  barneys,"  from  the  middle  upwards, 
having  halberds  in  their  hands,  and  bearing  on  their 
shoulders  a  model  of  the  Tower,  and  each  and 
every  one  of  these  latter  personages,  in  his  degree, 
having  a  consciousness  that  he,  too,  was  a  fine 
fellow.  Then  all  these  fine  fellows,  with  the  drums 
and  music,  and  with  all  their  "  fethers  "  and  finery, 
went  three  times  round  the  fire,  whereas,  consider- 
ing that  the  boar's  head  was  cooling  all  the  time, 
we  think  once  might  have  sufficed.  Then  the  con- 
stable marshal,  after  three  courtesies,  knelt  down  be- 
fore the  Lord  Chancellor,  with  the  lieutenant  doing 
the  same  behind  him,  and  then  and  there  deliber- 
ately proceeded  to  deliver  himself  of  an  "  oration  of 
a  quarter  of  an  hour's  length,"  the  purport  of  which 
was  to  tender  his  ser\dces  to  the  Lord  Chancellor, 
which,  we  think,  at  such  a  time  he  might  have 
contrived  to  do  in  fewer  words.  To  this  the  Chan- 
cellor was  unwise  enough  to  reply  that  he  would 
"take  farther  advice  therein,"  when  it  would  have 
been  much  better  for  him  to  settle  the  matter  at 
once,  and  proceed  to  eat  his  dinner.  However, 
this  part  of  the  ceremony  ended  at  last  by  the  con- 
stable marshal  and  the  lieutenant  obtaining  seats  at 
the  Chancellor's  table,  upon  the  former  giving  up 
his  sword :  and  then  enter,  for  a  similar  purpose, 
the  master  of  the  game,  apparelled  in  green  velvet, 
and  the  ranger  of  the  forest,  in  a  green  suit  of 
"  satten,"  bearing  in  his  hand  a  green  bow,  and 
"  divers  "  arrows,  "  with  either  of  them  a  hunting- 


THE    CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  77 

horn  about  their  necks,  blowing  together  three  blasts 
of  venery."  These  worthies,  also,  thought  it  neces- 
sary to  parade  their  finery  three  times  around  the 
fire  ;  and  having  then  made  similar  obeisances,  and 
offered  up  a  similar  petition  in  a  similar  posture, 
they  were  finally  inducted  into  a  similar  privilege. 
But  though  seated  at  the  Chancellor's  table,  and 
no  doubt  sufficiently  roused  by  the  steam  of  its 
good  things,  they  were  far  enough  as  yet  from  get- 
ting anything  to  eat,  as  a  consequence ;  and  the 
next  ceremony  is  one  which  strikingly  marks  the 
rudeness  of  the  times.  "A  huntsman  cometh  into 
the  hall,  with  a  fox,  and  a  purse-net  with  a  cat,  both 
bound  at  the  end  of  a  staff",  and  with  them  nine  or 
ten  couple  of  hounds,  with  the  blowing  of  hunting- 
horns.  And  the  fox  and  the  cat  are  set  upon  by 
the  hounds,  and  killed  beneath  the  fire."  "  What 
this  '  merry  disport '  signified  (if  practised)  before 
the  Reformation,"  says  a  writer  in  Mr.  Hone's  Year 
Book,  "  I  know  not.  In  '  Ane  compendious  boke 
of  godly  and  spiritual  songs,  Edinburgh,  162 1, 
printed  from  an  old  copy,'  are  the  following  lines, 
seemingly  referring  to  some  such  pageant :  — 

'  The  hunter  is  Christ  that  hunts  in  haist, 
The  hunds  are  Peter  and  Pawle, 
The  paip  is  the  fox,  Rome  is  the  Rox 
That  rubbis  us  on  the  gall.' " 

After  these  ceremonies,  the  welcome  permission 
to  betake  themselves  to  the  far  more  interesting 
one  of  an  attack  upon  the  good  things  of  the  feast 


78  THE   BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

appears  to  have  been  at  length  given  ;  but  at  the 
close  of  the  second  course  the  subject  of  receiving 
the  officers  who  had  tendered  their  Christmas  ser- 
vice was  renewed.  Whether  the  gentlemen  of  the 
law  were  burlesquing  their  own  profession  inten- 
tionally or  whether  it  was  only  an  awkward  hit, 
like  that  which  befell  their  brethren  of  Gray's  Inn, 
does  not  appear.  However,  the  common  serjeant 
made  what  is  called  "  a  plausible  speech,"  insisting 
on  the  necessity  of  these  officers  "  for  the  better 
reputation  of  the  Commonwealth ; "  and  he  was 
followed,  to  the  same  effect,  by  the  king's  serjeant- 
at-law  till  the  Lord  Chancellor  silenced  them  by 
desiring  a  respite  of  further  advice,  which  it  is 
greatly  to  be  marvelled  he  had  not  done  sooner. 
And  thereupon  he  called  upon  the  "ancientest  of 
the  masters  of  the  revels  "  for  a  song,  —  a  proceeding 
to  which  we  give  our  unqualified  approbation. 

So  much  for  the  dinner.  After  supper,  the  con- 
stable marshal  again  presented  himself,  if  possible 
finer  than  before,  preceded  by  drums,  —  as  so  fine 
a  man  ought  to  be,  —  and  mounted  on  a  scaffold 
borne  by  four  men.  After  again  going  thrice  round 
the  hearth,  he  dismounted  from  his  elevation,  and 
having  set  a  good  example  by  first  playing  the  figu- 
rant himself  for  the  edification  of  the  court,  called 
upon  the  nobles,  by  their  respective  Christmas  names, 
to  do  the  same.  Of  the  styles  and  titles  which  it 
was  considered  humorous  to  assume  on  such  occa- 
sions, and  by  which  he  called  up  his  courtiers  to 


THE    CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  79 

dance,  our  readers  may  take  the  following  for  speci- 
mens :  — 

"  Sir  Francis  Flatterer,  of  Fowlehurst,  in  the 
county  of  Buckingham." 

"  Sir  Randle  Rackabite,  of  Rascall  Hall,  in  the 
county  of  Rabchell." 

"  Sir  Morgan  Mumchance,  of  Much  Monker}^  in 
the  county  of  Mad  Popery." 

And  so  on,  with  much  more  of  the  same  kind, 
which  we  are  sure  our  readers  will  spare  us,  or 
rather  thank  us  for  sparing  them.  The  ceremonies 
of  St.  John's  Day  were,  if  possible,  more  absurd  than 
those  by  which  St.  Stephen  was  honored ;  but,  that 
we  may  take  leave  of  the  lawyers  on  good  terms, 
and  with  a  word  of  commendation,  we  will  simply 
add  that  the  concluding  one  is  stated  to  be  that 
on  the  Thursday  following  "  the  Chancellor  and 
company  partook  of  dinner  of  roast  beef  and  veni- 
son pasties,  and  at  supper  of  mutton  and  hens 
roasted,"  which  we  take  to  have  been  not  only  the 
most  sensible  proceeding  of  the  whole  series,  but 
about  as  sensible  a  thing  as  they  or  anybody  else 
could  well  do. 

So  important  were  these  Christmas  celebrations 
deemed  by  our  ancestors,  and  such  was  the  earnest- 
ness bestowed  upon  their  preparation,  that  a  special 
officer  was  appointed  for  that  purpose,  and  to  pre- 
side over  the  festival  with  large  privileges,  very 
considerable  appointments,  and  a  retinue  which  in 
course  of  time  came  to  be  no  insignificant  imitation 


80  THE    BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

of  a  prince's.  We  are  of  course  speaking  at  pres- 
ent of  the  officer  who  was  appointed  to  the  super- 
intendence of  the  Christmas  ceremonials  at  court. 
The  title  by  which  this  potentate  was  usually  distin- 
guished in  England  was  that  of  "  Lord  of  Misrule," 
"Abbot  of  Misrule,"  or  "  Master  of  Merry  Disports  ;  " 
and  his  office  was,  in  fact,  that  of  a  temporary  "  Mas- 
ter of  the  Revels  "  (which  latter  title  was  formerly 
that  of  a  permanent  and  distinguished  officer  at- 
tached to  the  household  of  our  kings).  Accordingly 
we  find  that  amongst  those  of  the  more  powerful 
nobles  who  affected  an  imitation  of  the  royal  ar- 
rangements in  their  Christmas  establishments,  this 
Christmas  officer  (when  they  appointed  one  to  pre- 
side over  their  private  Christmas  celebrations)  was 
occasionally  nominated  as  their  "  Master  of  the 
Revels."  In  the  Household- Book  of  the  Northum- 
berland family,  amongst  the  directions  given  for  the 
order  of  the  establishment,  it  is  stated  that  "  My 
lorde  useth  and  accustomyth  yerly  to  gyf  hym  which 
is  ordynede  to  be  the  Master  of  the  Revells  yerly 
in  my  lordis  hous  in  cristmas  for  the  overseyinge 
and  orderinge  of  his  lordschips  Playes,  Interludes, 
and  Dresinge  that  is  plaid  befor  his  lordship  in  his 
hous  in  the  xijth  dayes  of  Cristenmas,  and  they  to 
have  in  rewarde  for  that  caus  yerly,  xxj."  In  the 
Inns  of  Court,  where  this  officer  formed  no  part  of 
a  household,  but  was  a  member  elected  out  of  their 
own  body  for  his  ingenuity,  he  was  commonly  dig- 
nified by  a  title  more  appropriate  to  the  extensive 


THE   CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  Si 

authority  with  which  he  was  invested,  and  the  state 
with  which  he  was  furnished  for  its  due  maintenance ; 
namely,  that  of  "  Christmas  Prince,"  or  sometimes 
"  King  of  Christmas."  He  is  the  same  oiificer  who 
was  known  in  Scotland  as  the  "  Abbot  of  Unreason," 
and  bears  a  close  resemblance  to  the  "  Abbas  Stul- 
toruni,"  who  presided  over  the  Feast  of  Fools  in 
France,  and  the  "  Abb6  de  la  Malgourvern^,"  who 
ruled  the  sports  in  certain  provinces  of  that  king- 
dom. In  a  note  to  Ellis's  edition  of  Brand's 
"  Popular  Antiquities,"  we  find  a  quotation  from  Mr. 
Warton  (whose  "  History  of  English  Poetry "  we 
have  not  at  hand)  in  which  mention  is  made  of  an 
"Abb6  de  Liesse,"  and  a  reference  given  to  Car- 
pentier's  Supplement  to  Du  Cange,  for  the  title 
"Abbas  Lsetitise."  We  mention  these,  to  enable 
the  antiquarian  portion  of  our  readers  to  make  the 
reference  for  themselves.  Writing  in  the  country, 
we  have  not  access  to  the  works  in  question,  and 
could  not,  in  these  pages,  go  farther  into  the  matter 
if  we  had. 

We  have  already  stated  that  the  "  Lord  of  Mis- 
rule "  appears  to  bear  a  considerable  resemblance 
to  that  ruler  or  king  who  was  anciently  appointed  to 
preside  over  the  sports  of  the  Roman  Saturnalia ; 
and  we  find  on  looking  farther  into  the  subject, 
that  we  are  corroborated  in  this  view  by  one  who, 
of  course,  asserts  the  resemblance  for  the  purpose 
of  making  it  a  matter  of  reproach.  The  notorious 
Prynne,  in  his  "  Histrio-Mastix,"  affirms  (and  quotes 
6 


82  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

Polydore  Virgil  to  the  same  effect)  that  "  our 
Christmas  lords  of  Misrule,  together  with  dancing, 
masques,  mummeries,  stage-players,  ^.nd  such  other 
Christmas  disorders,  now  in  use  with  Christians, 
were  derived  from  these  Roman  Saturnalia  and 
Bacchanalian  festivals ;  which,"  adds  he,  "  should 
cause  all  pious  Christians  eternally  to  abominate 
them."  We  should  not,  however,  omit  to  mention 
that  by  some  this  officer  has  been  derived  from  the 
ancient  ceremony  of  the  Boy-Bishop.  Faber  speaks 
of  him  as  originating  in  an  old  Persico- Gothic 
festival  in  honor  of  Buddha  :  and  Purchas,  in  his 
"  Pilgrimage,"  as  quoted  in  the  Aubrey  manu- 
scripts, says,  that  the  custom  is  deduced  from  the 
"  Feast  in  Babylon,  kept  in  honour  of  the  goddess 
Dorcetha,  for  five  dayes  together;  during  which 
time  the  masters  were  under  the  dominion  of  their 
servants,  one  of  which  is  usually  sett  over  the  rest, 
and  royally  cloathed,  and  was  called  Sogan,  that  is, 
Great  Prince." 

The  title,  however,  by  which  this  officer  is  most 
generally  known  is  that  of  Lord  of  Misrule.  "  There 
was,"  says  Stow,  "  in  the  feast  of  Christmas,  in  the 
king's  house,  wheresoever  he  was  lodged,  a  Lord 
of  Misrule,  or  Master  of  merry  Disports ;  and  the 
like  had  ye  for  the  house  of  every  nobleman  of 
honour  or  good  worship,  were  he  spiritual  or  tem- 
poral. Among  the  which  the  Mayor  of  London 
and  either  of  the  Sheriffs  had  their  several  Lords  of 
Misrule  ever  contending,  without  quarrel  or  offence, 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON,  83 

which  should  make  the  rarest  pastimes  to  delight 
the  beholders." 

Of  the  antiquity  of  this  officer  in  England,  we 
have  not  been  able  to  find  any  satisfactory  account ; 
but  we  discover  traces  of  him  almost  as  early  as  we 
have  any  positive  records  of  the  various  sports  by 
which  the  festival  of  this  season  was  supported. 
Polydore  Virgil  speaks  of  the  splendid  spectacles, 
the  masques,  dancings,  etc.,  by  which  it  was  illus- 
trated as  far  back  as  the  close  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury ;  and  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  something 
in  the  shape  of  a  master  of  these  public  ceremonies 
must  have  existed  then,  to  preserve  order  as  well  as 
furnish  devices,  particularly  as  the  hints  for  the  one 
and  the  other  seem  to  have  been  taken  from  the 
celebrations  of  the  heathens.  As  early  as  the  year 
1489  Leland  speaks  of  an  Abbot  of  Misrule  '"'  that 
made  much  sport,  and  did  right  well  his  office." 
Henry  the  Seventh's  "  boke  of  paymentis,"  pre- 
served in  the  Chapter  House,  is  stated  by  Sandys  to 
contain  several  items  of  disbursement  to  the  Lord 
of  Misrule  (or  Abbot,  as  he  is  therein  sometimes 
called)  for  different  years  "  in  rewarde  for  his  besynes 
in  Christenmes  holydays,"  none  of  which  exceeded 
the  sum  of  ^6.  135".  4^.  This  sum  —  multiplied  as 
we  imagine  it  ought  to  be  by  something  like  fifteen, 
to  give  the  value  thereof  in  our  days  —  certainly  af- 
fords no  very  liberal  remuneration  to  an  officer 
whose  duties  were  of  any  extent :  and  we  mention 
it  that  our  readers  may  contrast  it  with  the  lavish 


84  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

appointments  of  the  same  functionary  in  after 
times.  Henry,  however,  was  a  frugal  monarch, 
though  it  was  a  part  of  his  policy  tp  promote  the 
amusements  of  the  people ;  and  from  the  treasures 
which  that  frugality  created,  his  immediate  succes- 
sors felt  themselves  at  liberty  to  assume  a  greater 
show.  In  the  subsequent  reign,  the  yearly  pay- 
ments to  the  Lord  of  Misrule  had  already  been 
raised  as  high  as  ;^i5  6s.  8//.;  and  the  entertain- 
ments over  which  he  presided  were  furnished  at  a 
proportionably  increased  cost. 

It  is  not,  however,  until  the  reign  of  the  young 
monarch,  Edward  the  Sixth,  that  this  officer  appears 
to  have  attained  his  highest  dignities  ;  and  during  the 
subsequent  reign  we  find  him  playing  just  such  a 
part  as  might  be  expected  from  one  whose  business 
it  was  to  take  the  lead  in  revels  such  as  we  have  had 
occasion  to  describe  ;  namely,  that  of  arch-buffoon. 

In  Hollinshed's  Chronicle,  honorable  mention  is 
made  of  a  certain  George  Ferrers,  therein  described 
as  a  '■  lawyer,  a  poet,  and  an  historian,"  who  sup- 
plied the  office  well  in  the  fifth  year  of  Edward  the 
Sixth,  and  who  was  rewarded  by  the  young  king 
with  princely  liberality.  This  George  Ferrers  was 
the  principal  author  of  that  well-known  work,  the 
"  Mirrour  for  Magistrates ; "  and  Mr.  Kempe,  the 
editor  of  the  recently  published  "  Loseley  Manu- 
scripts," mentions  his  having  been  likewise  distin- 
guished by  military  services,  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
the  Eighth.     It  appears  that  the  young  king  having 


THE    CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  85 

fallen  into  a  state  of  melancholy  after  the  condem- 
nation of  his  uncle,  the  Protector,  it  was  determined 
to  celebrate  the  approaching  Christmas  festival  with 
more  than  usual  splendor,  for  the  purpose  of  divert- 
ing his  mind  ;  and  this  distinguished  individual  was 
selected  to  preside  ever  the  arrangements. 

The  publication  of  the  "  Loseley  Manuscripts  " 
enables  us  to  present  our  readers  with  some  very 
curious  particulars,  illustrative  at  once  of  the  nature 
of  those  arrangements,  and  of  the  heavy  cost  at 
which  they  were  furnished.  By  an  order  in  council, 
—  dated  the  31st  of  September,  1552,  and  addressed 
to  Sir  Thomas  Cawarden,  at  that  time  Master  of  the 
King's  Revels,  —  after  reciting  the  appointment  of 
the  said  George  Ferrers,  the  said  Sir  Thomas  is  in- 
formed that  it  is  his  Majesty's  pleasure  "  that  you  se 
hym  furneshed  for  hym  and  his  bande,  as  well  in 
apparell  as  all  other  necessaries,  of  such  stuff  as 
remayneth  in  your  office.  And  whatsoever  wanteth 
in  the  same,  to  take  order  that  it  be  provided  ac- 
cordinghe  by  yo"^  discretion." 

For  the  manner  in  which  the  Lord  of  Misrule 
availed  himself  of  this  unlimited  order,  we  recom- 
mend to  such  of  our  readers  as  the  subject  may 
interest  a  perusal  of  the  various  estimates  and  ac- 
counts published  by  Mr.  Kempe  from  the  manu- 
scripts in  question.  Were  it  not  that  they  would 
occupy  too  much  of  our  space,  we  should  have  been 
glad  to  introduce  some  of  them  here,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  conveying  to  the  reader  a  lively  notion  of 


86  THE   BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

the  gorgeousness  of  apparel  and  appointment  ex- 
hibited on  this  occasion.  We  must,  however,  pre- 
sent them  with  some  idea  of  the  train  for  whom 
these  costly  preparations  were  made,  and  of  the 
kind  of  mock  court  with  which  the  Lord  of  Misrule 
surrounded  himself. 

Amongst  these  we  find  mention  made  of  a  chan- 
cellor, treasurer,  comptroller,  vice-chamberlain,  lords- 
councillors,  divine,  philosopher,  astronomer,  poet, 
physician,  apothecary,  master  of  requests,  civilian, 
disard  (an  old  word  for  clown),  gentleman-ushers, 
pages  of  honor,  sergeants-at-arms,  provost-marshal, 
under-marshal,  footmen,  messengers,  trumpeter, 
herald,  orator ;  besides  hunters,  jugglers,  tumblers, 
band,  fools,  friars  (a  curious  juxtaposition,  which 
Mr.  Kempe  thinks  might  intend  a  satire),  and  a 
variety  of  others.  None  seem  in  fact  to  have  been 
omitted  who  were  usually  included  in  the  retinue 
of  a  prince ;  and  over  this  mock  court  the  mock 
monarch  appears  to  have  presided  with  a  sway  as 
absolute,  as  far  as  regarded  the  purposes  of  his 
appointment,  as  the  actual  monarch  himself  over 
the  weightier  matters  of  the  state.  But  the  most 
curious  part  of  these  arrangements  is  that  by  which 
(as  appears  from  one  of  the  lists  printed  from  these 
manuscripts)  he  seems  to  have  been  accompanied 
in  his  processions  by  an  heir-at-law,  and  three  other 
children,  besides  two  base  sotis.  These  two  base 
sons,  we  presume,  are  bastards  ;  and  that  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  potentate  could  not  be  considered 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  87 

complete  without  them.  The  editor  also  mentions 
that  he  was  attended  by  an  almoner,  who  scattered 
amongst  the  crowd  during  his  progresses,  certain 
coins  made  by  the  wire-drawers ;  and  remarks  that 
if  these  bore  the  portrait  and  superscription  of  the 
Lord  of  Misrule,  they  would  be  rare  pieces  in  the 
eye  of  a  numismatist. 

The  following  very  curious  letter,  which  we  will 
give  entire,  will  furnish  our  readers  with  a  lively 
picture  of  the  pageantries  of  that  time,  and  of  the 
zeal  with  which  full-grown  men  set  about  amuse- 
ments of  a  kind  which  are  now  usually  left  to  chil- 
dren of  a  smaller  growth.  Playing  at  kings  is  in 
our  day  one  of  the  sports  of  more  juvenile  actors. 
The  letter  is  addressed  by  Master  George  Ferrers 
to  Sir  Thomas  Cawarden ;  and  gives  some  account 
of  his  intended  entry  at  the  court  at  Christmas,  and 
of  his  devices  for  furnishing  entertainment  during 
the  festival. 

Sir, —  Whereas  you  required  me  to  write,  for  that 
y'  busynes  is  great,  I  have  in  as  few  wordes  as  I 
maie  signefied  to  you  such  things  as  I  thinke  moste 
necessarie  for  my  purpose. 

ffirst,  as  towching  my  Introduction.  Whereas  the 
laste  yeare  my  devise  was  to  cum  of  oute  of  the  mone 
(moon)  this  yeare  I  imagine  to  cum  oute  of  a  place 
called  vastum  vacuum^  the  great  waste,  as  moche  to 
saie  as  a  place  voide  or  emptie  w"'out  the  worlde, 
where  is  neither  fier,  ayre,  nor  earth ;  and  that  I  have 
bene  remayning  there  sins  the  last  yeare.     And,  be- 


88  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

cause  of  certaine  devises  which  I  have  towching  this 
matter,  I  wold,  yf  it  were  possyble,  have  all  myne 
apparell  blewe,  the  first  dale  that  I  p'sent  my  self  to 
the  King's  Ma"*;  and  even  as  I  shewe  my  self  that 
daie,  so  my  mynd  is  in  like  order  and  in  like  suets 
(suits)  to  shew  myself  at  my  comyng  into  London  after 
the  halowed  dales. 

Againe,  how  I  shall  cum  into  the  Courte,  whether 
under  a  canopie,  as  the  last  yeare,  or  in  a  chare 
triumphall,  or  uppon  some  straunge  beaste,  —  that  I 
reserve  to  you  ;  but  the  serpente  with  sevin  heddes, 
cauled  hidra,  is  the  chief  beast  of  myne  armes,  and 
wholme^  (holm)  bush e  is  the  devise  of  my  crest,  my 
worde  ^  is  semper  ferians,  I  alwaies  feasting  or  kep- 
ing  holie  dales.  Uppon  Christmas  daie  I  send  a 
solempne  ambassad'  to  the  King's  Ma"  by  an  herrald, 
a  trumpet,  an  orator  speaking  in  a  straunge  language, 
an  interpreter  or  a  truchman  with  hym,  to  which 
p'sons  ther  were  requiset  to  have  convenient  farnyture, 
which  I  referre  to  you. 

1  have  provided  one  to  plaie  uppon  a  kettell  drom 
with  his  boye,  and  a  nother  drome  w""  a  fyffe,  whiche 
must  be  apparelled  like  turkes  garments,  according  to 
the  paternes  I  send  you  herewith.  On  St.  Stephen's 
daie,  I  wold,  if  it  were  possyble,  be  with  the  King's 
Ma**'  before  dynner.  Mr.  Windham,  being  my  Ad- 
myrall,  is  appointed  to  receive  me  beneth  the  bridge 
with  the  King's  Brigandyne,  and  other  vessells 
apointed  for  the  same  purpose ;  his  desire  is  to  have 
the  poope  of  his  vessell  covered  w*  white  and  blew, 
like  as  I  signefie  to  you  by  a  nother  1". 

^  The  evergreen  holly  is  meant,  a  bearing  peculiarly  ap- 
propriate to  the  lord  of  Christmas  sports. 

2  His  motto  or  impress. 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  89 

Sir  George  Howard,  being  my  M''.  of  the  Horsis, 
receiveth  me  at  my  landing  at  Grenwiche  with  a  spare 
horse  and  my  pages  of  hono',  one  carieng  my  hed 
pece,  a  nother  my  shelde,  the  thirde  my  sword,  the 
fourth  my  axe.  As  for  their  furniture  I  know  nothing 
as  yet  provided,  either  for  my  pages  or  otherwise, 
save  a  hed  peece  that  I  caused  to  be  made.  My 
counsailo",  with  suche  other  necessarie  psons  y*  at- 
tend uppon  me  that  daie,  also  must  be  consydered. 
There  maie  be  no  fewer  than  sixe  counsailo"  at  the 
least ;  I  must  also  have  a  divine,  a  philosopher,  an 
astronomer,  a  poet,  a  phisician,  a  potecarie,  a  m'  of 
requests,  a  sivihan,  a  disard,  John  Smyth,  two  gentle- 
men ushers,  besides  juglers,  tomblers,  fooles,  friers, 
and  suche  other. 

The  residue  of  the  wholie  dales  I  will  spend  in 
other  devises :  as  one  daie  in  feats  of  armes,  and  then 
wolde  I  have  a  challeng  pformed  with  hobble  horsis, 
where  I  purpose  to  be  in  pson.  Another  daie  in  hunt- 
ing and  hawking,  the  residue  of  the  tyme  shalbe  spent 
in  other  devisis,  which  I  will  declare  to  you  by  mouth 
to  have  yo'  ayde  and  advice  therin. 

S',  I  know  not  howe  ye  be  provided  to  furnish  me, 
but  suer  methinks  I  shold  have  no  lesse  than  five  suets 
of  apparell,  the  first  for  the  daie  I  come  in,  which  shall 
also  serve  me  in  London,  and  two  other  suets  for  the 
twohalowed  daies  folowing,  the  fourth  fornewe  yeares 
daie,  and  the  fifte  for  XII*  daie. 

Touching  my  suet  of  blew,  I  have  sent  you  a 
pece  of  velvet  which  hath  a  kinde  of  powdered  er- 
maines  in  it,  vearie  fytt  for  my  wering,  yf  you  so 
thynke  good.  All  other  matters  I  referre  tyll  I  shall 
speake  with  you. 

George  Ferrers. 


90  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

In  Other  letters  from  this  Lord  of  Misrule  to  the 
Master  of  the  Revels  he  applies  for  eight  visors 
for  a  drunken  masque,  and  eight  swprds  and  dag- 
gers for  the  same  purpose  ;  twelve  hobby-horses,  two 
Dryads,  and  Irish  dresses  for  a  man  and  woman  ; 
and  seventy  jerkins  of  buckram,  or  canvas  painted 
like  mail,  for  seventy  "hakbuturs,"  or  musketeers  of 
his  guard. 

Such  are  some  of  the  testimonies  borne  by  the 
parties  themselves  to  their  own  right  pleasant  follies, 
and  the  expense  at  which  they  maintained  them ; 
and  to  these  we  will  add  another,  coming  from  an 
adverse  quarter,  and  showing  the  light  in  which 
these  costly  levities  had  already  come  to  be  re- 
garded by  men  of  sterner  minds  so  early  as  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth.  The  following  very  curious 
passage  is  part  of  an  extract  made  by  Brand,  from  a 
most  rare  book  entitled  "  The  Anatomic  of  Abuses," 
—  the  work  of  one  Phillip  Stubs,  published  in  Lon- 
don in  1585, — and  gives  a  quaint  picture  of  the 
Lord  of  Misrule  and  his  retainers,  as  viewed  through 
Puritan  optics. 

'•'  Firste,"  says  Master  Stubs,  "  all  the  wilde  heades 
of  the  parishe  conventynge  together,  chuse  them  a 
grand  Capitaine  (of  mischeef)  whom  they  innoble 
with  the  tide  of  my  Lorde  of  Misserule,  and  hym 
they  crown  with  great  solemnitie,  and  adopt  for 
their  kyng.  This  kyng  anoynted,  chuseth  for  the 
twentie,  fourtie,  three  score,  or  a  hundred  lustie 
guttes  like  to  hymself,  to  waite  uppon  his  lordely 


THE   CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  9 1 

majestic,  and  to  guarde  his  noble  persone.  Then 
every  one  of  these  his  menne  he  investeth  with  his 
liveries  of  greene,  yellovve  or  some  other  light  wan- 
ton colour.  And  as  though  that  were  not  (baudie) 
gaudy  enough  I  should  sale,  they  bedecke  them- 
selves with  scarffes,  ribons,  and  laces,  hanged  all 
over  with  golde  rynges,  precious  stones,  and  other 
jewelles :  this  doen,  they  tye  about  either  legge 
twentie  or  fourtie  belles  with  rich  handkercheefes 
in  their  handes,  and  sometymes  laied  acrosse  over 
their  shoulders  and  neckes,  borrowed  for  the  moste 
parte  of  their  pretie  Mopsies  and  loovyng  Bessies, 
for  bussyng  them  in  the  darcke.  Thus  thinges 
sette  in  order,  they  have  their  hobbie  horses,  drag- 
ons, and  other  antiques,  together  with  their  bau- 
die pipers,  and  thunderyng  drommers,  to  strike  up 
the  Deville's  Daunce  withall  "  (meaning  the  Morris 
Dance),  "then  marche  these  heathen  companie 
towardes  the  church  and  churche  yarde,  their 
pipers  pipyng,  drommers  thonderyng,  their  stumppes 
dauncyng,  their  belles  iynglyng,  their  handkerchefes 
swyngyng  about  their  heades  like  madmen,  their 
hobbie  horses  and  other  monsters  skyrmishyng 
amongst  the  throng :  and  in  this  sorte  they  goe  to 
the  churche  (though  the  minister  bee  at  praier  or 
preaghyng)  dauncyng  and  swingyng  their  hand- 
kercheefes over  their  heades,  in  the  churche,  like 
devilles  incarnate,  with  suche  a  confused  noise  that 
no  man  can  heare  his  owne  voice.  Then  the 
foolishe  people,  they  looke,  they  stare,  they  laugh. 


92  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

they  fleere,  and  mount  upon  formes  and  pewes,  to 
see  these  goodly  pageauntes,  solemnized  in  this 
sort.  " 

At  the  Christmas  celebration  held  at  Gray's  Inn 
in  1594,  to  which  we  have  already  alluded,  the 
person  selected  to  fill  the  office  of  Christmas  Prince 
was  a  Norfolk  gentleman  of  the  name  of  Helmes, 
whose  leg,  like  that  of  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek, 
appears  "  to  have  been  formed  under  the  star  of 
a  galliard."  He  is  described  as  being  "  accom- 
pHshed  with  all  good  parts,  fit  for  so  great  a  dignity, 
and  also  a  very  proper  man  in  personage,  and  very 
active  in  dancing  and  revelling."  The  revels  over 
which  this  mock  monarch  presided  were,  as  our 
readers  will  remember,  exhibited  before  Queen 
Elizabeth;  and  it  was  the  exquisite  performance  of 
this  gentleman  and  his  court  which  her  Majesty 
described  as  bearing  the  same  relation  for  excellence 
to  those  of  her  own  courtiers  which  a  banquet  does 
to  bread  and  cheese.  We  must  refer  such  of  our 
readers  as  are  desirous  of  informing  themselves 
as  to  the  nature  and  taste  of  the  devices  which  could 
make  her  Majesty  so  eloquent,  to  the  "  Gesta  Grayo- 
rum  ;  "  contenting  ourselves  with  giving  them  such 
notion  thereof,  as  well  as  of  the  high  dignities  which 
appertained  to  a  Lord  of  Misrule,  as  may  be  con- 
veyed by  a  perusal  of  the  magnificent  style  and 
titles  assumed  by  Mr.  Henry  Helmes  on  his  ac- 
cession. They  were  enough  to  have  made  her 
Majesty  jealous,  if  she  had  not  been  so  good-natured 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  93 

a  queen ;  for  looking  at  the  philosophy  of  the  thing, 
she  was  about  as  much  a  mock  monarch  as  him- 
self, and  could  not  dance  so  well.  To  be  sure,  she 
was  acknowledged  by  this  potentate  as  Lady  Para- 
mount ;  and  to  a  woman  like  Elizabeth,  it  was 
something  to  receive  personal  homage  from  — 

"  The  High  and  Mighty  Prince  Henry,  Prince  of 
Purpoole,  Archduke  of  Stapulia  and  Bernardia; 
Duke  of  High  and  Nether  Holborn;  Marquis  of 
St.  Giles  and  Tottenham ;  Count  Palatine  of 
Bloomsbury  and  Clerkenwell;  Great  Lord  of  the 
Cantons  of  Islington,  Kentish  Town,  Paddington, 
and  Knightsbridge ;  Knight  of  the  most  Heroical 
Order  of  the  Helmet,  and  Sovereign  of  the 
same  "  ! 

It  is  admitted  that  no  man  can  be  a  great  actor 
who  has  not  the  faculty  of  divesting  himself  of  his 
personal  identity,  and  persuading  himself  that  he 
really  is,  for  the  time,  that  which  he  represents  him- 
self to  be ;  his  doing  which  will  go  far  to  per- 
suade others  into  the  same  belief.  Now  as  her 
Majesty  has  pronounced  upon  the  excellence  of  Mr. 
Henry  Helmes's  acting,  and  if  we  are  therefore 
to  suppose  that  that  gentleman  had  contrived  to 
mystify  both  himself  and  her,  she  would  naturally 
be  not  a  little  vain  of  so  splendid  a  vassal.  But 
seriously,  it  is  not  a  little  amusing  to  notice  the 
good  faith  with  which  these  gentlemen  appear  to 
have  put  on  and  worn  their  burlesque  dignities,  and 
the  real  homage  which  they  not  only  expected,  but 


94  THE   BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

actually  received.  If  the  tricks  which  they  played 
during  their  "  brief  authority,"  were  not  of  that 
mischievous  kind  which  "  make  the  ?ingels  weep," 
they  were  certainly  fantastic  enough  to  make  those 
who  are  "a.  little  lower  than  the  angels"  smile.  A 
Lord  Mayor  in  his  gilt  coach  seems  to  be  a  trifle 
compared  with  a  Lord  of  Misrule  entering  the  city 
of  London  in  former  days  ;  and  the  following  pas- 
sage from  Warton's  "  History  of  English  Poetry," 
exhibits  amusingly  enough  the  sovereign  functions 
seriously  exercised  by  this  important  personage, 
and  the  homage,  both  ludicrous  and  substantial, 
which  he  sometimes  received  :  — 

"At  a  Christmas  celebrated  in  the  hall  of  the 
Middle  Temple,  in  the  year  1635,  the  jurisdiction 
privileges  and  parade  of  this  mock  monarch  are 
thus  circumstantially  described.  He  was  attended 
by  his  Lord  Keeper,  Lord  Treasurer  with  eight 
white  staves,  a  Captain  of  his  Band  of  Pensioners 
and  of  his  guard,  and  with  two  Chaplains  who 
were  so  seriously  impressed  with  an  idea  of  his  regal 
dignity  that,  when  they  preached  before  hint  on  the 
preceding  Sunday  in  the  Temple  Church,  on  ascend- 
ing the  pulpit  they  saluted  hint  with  three  low  bows. 
He  dined  both  in  the  Hall  and  in  his  Privy  Cham- 
ber under  a  cloth  of  Estate.  The  pole-axes  for  his 
Gentlemen  Pensioners  were  borrowed  of  Lord  Salis- 
bury. Lord  Holland,  his  temporary  justice  in  Eyre, 
supplies  him  with  venison  on  demand ;  and  the 
Lord    Mayor  and  Sheriffs  of  London  with   wine. 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  95 

On  Twelfth-day,  at  going  to  Church,  he  received 
many  petitions  which  he  gave  to  his  Master  of  Re- 
quests ;  and  like  other  kings  he  had  a  favourite, 
whom  —  with  others,  gentlemen  of  high  quality  — 
he  knighted  at  returning  from  Church." 

The  Christmas  Prince  on  this  occasion  was  Mr. 
Francis  Vivian,  who  expended  from  his  own  pri- 
vate purse  the  large  sum  of  ;^2,ooo  in  support  of 
his  dignities.  Really,  it  must  have  tried  the  philos- 
ophy of  these  gentlemen  to  descend  from  their  tem- 
porary elevation,  into  the  ranks  of  ordinary  hfe.  A 
deposed  prince  like  that  high  and  mighty  prince, 
Henry,  Prince  of  Purpoole,  must  have  felt,  on  get- 
ting up  on  the  morrow  of  Candlemas-day,  some 
portion  of  the  sensations  of  Abou  Hassan  on  the 
morning  which  succeeded  his  Caliphate  of  a  day, 
when  the  disagreeable  conviction  was  forced  upon 
him  that  he  was  no  longer  Commander  of  the 
Faithful,  and  had  no  further  claim  to  the  services 
of  Cluster-of-Pearls,  Morning-Star,  Coral-Lips  or 
Fair-Face.  In  the  case,  however,  of  Mr.  Francis 
Vivian,  it  is  stated  that  after  his  deposition  he  was 
knighted  by  the  king,  —  by  way,  we  suppose,  of 
breaking  his  fall. 

In  Wood's  "Athenae  Oxonienses,"  mention  is 
made  of  a  very  splendid  Christmas  ceremonial  ob- 
served at  St.  John's  College,  Oxford,  in  the  reign  of 
our  first  James,  which  was  presided  over  by  a  Mr. 
Thomas  Tooker,  whom  we  elsewhere  find  called 
"Tucker."      From  a  manuscript  account  of  this 


g6  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

exhibition,  Wood  quotes  the  titles  assumed  by  this 
gentleman  in  his  character  of  Christmas  Prince ; 
and  we  will  repeat  them  here,  for  the  purpose  of 
showing  that  the  legal  cloisters  were  not  the  only 
ones  in  which  mirth  was  considered  as  no  im- 
peachment of  professional  gravity,  and  that  hu- 
mor (such  as  it  is)  was  an  occasional  guest  of  the 
wisdom  which  is  proverbially  said  to  reside  in 
wigs  —  of  a//  denominations.  From  a  comparison 
of  these  titles  with  those  by  which  Mr.  Henry 
Helmes  illustrated  his  own  magnificence  at  Gray's 
Inn,  our  readers  may  decide  for  themselves  upon 
the  relative  degrees  of  the  wit  which  flourished  be- 
neath the  shelter  of  the  respective  gowns.  Though 
ourselves  a  Cantab,  we  have  no  skill  in  the  measure- 
ment of  the  relations  of  small  quantities.  Of  the 
hearty  mirth  in  each  case  there  is  little  doubt ;  and 
humor  of  the  finest  quality  could  have  done  no 
more  than  produce  that  effect,  and  might  probably 
have  failed  to  do  so  much.  The  appetite  is  the 
main  point.  "  The  heart 's  all,"  as  Davy  says.  A 
small  matter  made  our  ancestors  laugh,  because 
they  brought  stomachs  to  the  feast  of  Momus. 
And,  Heaven  save  the  mark  !  through  how  many 
national  troubles  has  that  same  joyous  tempera- 
ment (which  is  the  farthest  thing  possible  from 
levity,  —  one  of  the  phases  of  deep  feehng,  — ) 
helped  to  bring  the  national  mind  !  The  "  merry 
days"  of  England  were  succeeded  by  what  may 
be  called  her  "age  of  tears,"  —  the  era  of  the  senti- 


THE   CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  '97 

mentalists,  when  young  gentlemen  ceased  to  wear 
cravats,  and  leaned  against  pillars  in  drawing-rooms 
in  fits  of  moody  abstraction  or  under  the  influence 
of  evident  inspiration,  and  young  ladies  made 
lachrymatories  of  their  boudoirs,  and  met  together 
to  weep,  and  in  fact  went  through  the  world  weep- 
ing. Amid  all  its  absurdity,  there  was  some  real 
feeling  at  the  bottom  of  this  too ;  and  therefore 
it,  too,  had  its  pleasure.  But  there  is  to  be  an 
end  of  this  also.  Truly  are  we  falling  upon  the 
"  evil  days  "  of  which  we  may  say  we  "  have  no 
pleasure  in  them."  Men  are  neither  to  laugh  nor 
smile,  now,  without  distinctly  knowing  why.  We 
are  in  the  age  of  the  philosophers.  —  All  this  time, 
however,  Mr.  Thomas  Tucker  is  waiting  to  have 
his  style  and  titles  proclaimed  ;  and  thus  do  we  find 
them  duly  set  forth  :  — 

"The  most  magnificent  and  renowned  Thomas, 
by  the  favor  of  Fortune,  Prince  of  Alba  Fortunata, 
Lord  of  St.  John's,  High  Regent  of  the  Hall,  Duke 
of  St.  Giles's,  Marquis  of  Magdalen's,  Landgrave  of 
the  Grove,  Count  Palatine  of  the  Cloysters,  Chief 
Bailiff  of  Beaumont,  High  Ruler  of  Rome,  Master 
of  the  Manor  of  Walton,  Governor  of  Gloucester 
Green,  sole  Commander  of  all  Titles,  Tournaments, 
and  Triumphs,  Superintendent  in  all  Solemnities 
whatever.  " 

From  these  titles,  —  as  well  as  from  those  which 
we  have  already  mentioned  as  being  assumed  by 
the  courtiers  of  the  illustrious  Prince  of  Sophie,  our 
7 


98  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

readers  will  perceive  that  alliteration  was  an  es- 
teemed figure  in  the  rhetoric  of  the  revels. 

In  order  to  give  our  readers  a  more  lively  idea  of 
this  potentate,  we  have,  as  the  frontispiece  to  our 
second  part,  introduced  a  Lord  of  Misrule  to  pre- 
side over  the  Christmas  sports  therein  described. 
Although  the  titles  with  which  we  have  there  in- 
vested him  are  taken  from  the  "  Gesta  Grayorum," 
the  dress  in  which  the  artist  has  bestowed  him  is 
not  copied  from  any  one  of  the  particular  descrip- 
tions furnished  by  the  different  records.  He  is  in- 
tended to  represent  the  ideal  of  a  Christmas  prince, 
and  not  the  portrait  of  any  particular  one  of  whom 
we  have  accounts.  The  artist's  instructions  were 
therefore  confined  to  investing  him  with  a  due 
magnificence  (referring  to  the  records  only  so  far 
as  to  keep  the  costume  appropriate)  and  with  a 
complacent  sense  of  his  own  finery  and  state,  and 
we  think  that  Mr.  Seymour  has  succeeded  very 
happily  in  catching  and  embodying  the  mock  he- 
roic of  the  character.  The  Prince  of  Purpoole,  or 
His  Highness  of  Sophie,  must  have  looked  just 
such  a  personage  as  he  has  represented. 

We  must  not  omit  to  observe  that  a  correspond- 
ing officer  appears  to  have  formerly  exercised  his 
functions  at  some  of  the  colleges  at  Cambridge, 
under  the  more  classical  title  of  Imperator.  And 
we  must  further  state  that  at  Lincoln's- Inn,  in  the 
early  times  of  their  Christmas  celebrations,  there 
appear  to  have  been  elected  (besides  the  Lord  of 


THE    CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  99 

Misrule,  and,  we  presume,  in  subordination  to  him) 
certain  dignitaries  exercising  a  royal  sway  over  the 
revelries  of  particular  days  of  the  festival.  In  the  ac- 
count given  by  Dugdale  of  the  Christmas  held  by  this 
society  in  the  ninth  year  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII., 
mention  is  made  —  besides  the  Marshal  and  (as  he 
is  there  called)  the  Master  of  the  Revels  —  of  a  King 
chosen  for  Christmas  day,  and  an  ofificer  for  Chil- 
dermas day  having  the  title  of  King  of  the  Cock- 
neys. A  relic  of  this  ancient  custom  exists  in  the 
Twelfth  Night  King,  whom  it  is  still  usual  to  elect 
on  the  festival  of  the  Epiphany,  and  of  whom  we 
shall  have  occasion  to  speak  at  length  in  his  proper 
place. 

The  length  of  the  period  over  which  the  sway  of 
this  potentate  extended  does  not  seem  to  be  very 
accurately  defined,  or  rather  it  is  probable  that 
it  varied  with  circumstances.  Strictly  speaking,  the 
Christmas  season  is  in  our  day  considered  to  ter- 
minate with  Twelfth  Night,  and  the  festival  itself  to 
extend  over  that  space  of  time  of  which  this  night 
on  one  side  and  Christmas  eve  on  the  other  are 
the  limits.  In  ancient  times,  too,  we  find  frequent 
mention  of  the  twelve  days  of  Christmas.  Thus 
the  George  Ferrers  of  whom  we  have  spoken,  is 
appointed  "  to  be  in  his  hyness  household  for  the 
twelve  days ; "  and  he  dates  one  of  his  communica- 
tions to  Sir  Thomas  Cawarden,  "  From  Greenwich 
y^  second  of  January  and  y"  ix*  day  of  o'  rule." 
In  the  extract  from    the  Household-Book  of  the 


lOO  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

Northumberland  family  which  we  have  already 
quoted,  mention  is  also  made  of  the  "  Playes,  In- 
terludes and  Dresinge  that  is  plaid  befor  his  lordship 
in  his  hous  in  the  xijth  dayes  of  Christenmas." 
Stow,  however,  says  that  "  these  Lords  beginning 
their  rule  at  AUhallond  Eve,  continued  the  same  till 
the  morrow  after  the  Feast  of  the  Purification,  com- 
monly called  Candlemas  day ;  "  and  that  during  all 
that  time  there  were  under  their  direction  "  fine  and 
subtle  disguisings,  masks  and  mummeries,  with  play- 
ing at  cards  for  counters,  nayles  and  points  in  every 
house,  more  for  pastimes  than  for  gaine."  This 
would  give  a  reign  of  upwards  of  three  months  to 
these  gentlemen.  Dugdale,  in  describing  the  revels 
of  the  Inner  Temple  speaks  of  the  three  principal 
days  being  All-hallows,  Candlemas,  and  Ascension 
days, — ^  which  would  extend  the  period  to  seven 
months  ;  and  the  masque  of  which  we  have  spoken 
as  forming  the  final  performance  of  the  celebrated 
Christmas  of  1594,  described  in  the  "  Gesta  Gray- 
orum,"  is  stated  to  have  been  represented  before 
the  queen  at  Shrovetide.  At  the  Christmas  ex- 
hibition of  St.  John's  college,  Oxford,  held  in  1607, 
Mr.  Thomas  Tucker  did  not  resign  his  office  till 
Shrove-Tuesday ;  and  the  cosdy  masque  of  which  we 
have  spoken  as  being  presented  by  the  four  Inns  of 
Court  to  Charles  I.,  and  whose  title  was  "  The 
Triumph  of  Peace,"  was  exhibited  in  February  of 
1633.  In  Scotland,  the  rule  of  the  Abbot  of  Un- 
reason appears  to  have  been  still  less  limited  in 


THE    CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  lOI 

point  of  time ;  and  he  seems  to  have  held  his  court 
and  made  his  processions  at  any  period  of  the  year 
which  pleased  him.  These  processions,  it  appears, 
were  very  usual  in  the  month  of  May  (and  here 
we  will  take  occasion  to  observe  parenthetically,  but 
in  connection  with  our  present  subject,  that  the  prac- 
tice at  all  festival  celebrations  of  selecting  some 
individual  to  enact  a  principal  and  presiding  char- 
acter in  the  ceremonial  is  further  illustrated  by  the 
ancient  May  King,  and  by  the  practice,  not  yet 
wholly  forgotten,  of  crowning  on  the  first  of  that 
month  a  Queen  of  the  May.  This  subject  we  shall 
have  occasion  to  treat  more  fully  when  we  come  to 
speak  in  some  future  volume  of  the  beautiful  cus- 
toms of  that  out-of-doors  season). 

From  what  we  have  stated,  it  appears  probable 
that  the  officer  who  was  appointed  to  preside  over 
the  revels  so  universally  observed  at  Christmas  time, 
extended,  as  a  matter  of  course,  his  presidency  over 
all  those  which  —  either  arising  out  of  them  or  un- 
connected therewith  —  were  performed  at  more 
advanced  periods  of  the  succeeding  year ;  that  in 
fact,  the  Christmas  prince  was,  without  new  election, 
considered  as  special  master  of  the  revels  till  the 
recurrence  of  the  season.  It  is  not  necessary  for 
us  to  suppose  that  the  whole  of  the  intervals  lying 
between  such  stated  and  remote  days  of  celebra- 
tion were  filled  up  with  festival  observances ;  or 
that  our  ancestors,  under  any  calenture  of  the  spirits, 
could  aim  at  extending  Christmas  over  the  larger 


I02  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

portion  of  the  year.  It  is,  however,  apparent  that 
although  the  common  observances  of  the  season 
were  supposed  to  fall  within  the  period  bounded 
by  the  days  of  the  Nativity  and  the  Epiphany,  the 
special  pageantries  with  a  view  to  which  the  Lords  of 
Misrule  were  appointed  in  the  more  exalted  quarters 
were  in  years  of  high  festival  spread  over  a  much 
more  extended  time,  and  that  their  potential  digni- 
ties were  in  full  force,  if  not  in  full  display,  from 
the  eve  of  All-hallows  to  the  close  of  Candlemas 
day.  It  is  stated  in  Drake's  "  Shakspeare  and  his 
Times,"  that  the  festivities  of  the  season,  which 
were  appointed  for  at  least  twelve  days,  were  fre- 
quently extended  over  a  space  of  six  weeks ;  and 
our  readers  know  from  their  own  experience  that, 
even  in  these  our  days  of  less  prominent  and  cere- 
monial rejoicing,  the  holiday-spirit  of  the  season  is 
by  no  means  to  be  restrained  within  the  narrower 
of  those  limits.  The  Christmas  feeling  waits  not 
for  Christmas  day.  The  important  preparations  for 
so  great  a  festival  render  this  impossible.  By  the 
avenues  of  most  of  the  senses,  the  heralds  of  old 
Father  Christmas  have  long  before  approached  to 
awake  it  from  its  slumber.  Signal  notes  which  there 
is  no  mistaking,  have  been  played  on  the  visual  and 
olfactory  organs  for  some  time  past,  and  the  palate 
itself  has  had  foretastes  of  that  which  is  about  to 
be.  From  the  day  on  which  his  sign  has  been  seen 
in  the  heaven's,  the  joyous  influences  of  the  star 
have  been  felt  and  the  moment  the  school-boy  ar- 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  103 

rives  at  his  home  he  is  in  the  midst  of  Christmas. 
And  if  the  "coming  events"  of  the  season  "cast 
their  shadows  before,"  so,  amid  all  its  cross-lights  it 
would  be  strange  if  there  were  no  reflections  flung 
behind.  The  merry  spirit  which  has  been  awak- 
ened and  suffered  to  play  his  antics  so  long  is  not 
to  be  laid  by  the  exorcism  of  a  word.  After  so 
very  absolute  and  unquestioned  a  sway,  it  is  not  to 
be  expected  that  Momus  should  abdicate  at  a  mo- 
ment's notice.  Accordingly,  we  find  that,  any  thing 
enacted  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  the  genial 
feelings  of  the  time  and  the  festivities  springing  out 
of  them  contrive  to  maintain  their  footing  through- 
out the  month  of  January ;  and  Christmas  keeps 
lingering  about  our  homes  till  he  is  no  longer  an- 
swered by  the  young  glad  voices  to  whom  he  has 
not  as  yet  begun  to  utter  his  solemn  warnings  and 
expound  his  sterner  morals,  and  for  whom  his 
coming  is  hitherto  connected  with  few  memories  of 
pain.  Till  the  merry  urchins  have  gone  back  to 
school  there  will  continue  to  be  willing  subjects  to 
the  Lord  of  Misrule. 

In  Scotland,  the  Abbot  of  Unreason  was  fre- 
quently enacted  by  persons  of  the  highest  rank ; 
and  James  V.  is  himself  said  to  have  concealed  his 
crown  beneath  the  mitre  of  the  merry  abbot.  As 
in  England,  his  revels  were  shared  by  the  mightiest 
of  the  land  ;  but  they  appear  to  have  been  of  a  less 
inoffensive  kind  and  to  have  imitated  more  un- 
restrainedly the  license  of  the  Roman  Saturnalia 


104  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

than  did  the  merry-makings  of  the  South.  The 
mummeries  of  these  personages  (a  faint  reflection  of 
which  still  exists  in  the  Guisars  whom  we  shall  have 
to  mention  hereafter),  if  less  costly  than  those  of 
their  brethren  in  England,  were  not  less  showy ; 
and  though  much  less  quaint,  were  a  great  deal 
more  free.  "The  body-guards  of  the  Abbot  of 
Unreason  were  all  arrayed  in  gaudy  colors  bedecked 
with  gold  or  silver  lace,  with  embroidery  and  silken 
scarfs,  the  fringed  ends  of  which  floated  in  the 
wind.  They  wore  chains  of  gold  or  baser  metal 
gilt  and  glittering  with  mock  jewels.  Their  legs 
were  adorned  and  rendered  voluble  by  links  of 
shining  metal  hung  with  many  bells  of  the  same 
material  twining  from  the  ankle  of  their  buskins  to 
their  silken  garters,  and  each  flourished  in  his  hand 
a  rich  silk  handkerchief  brocaded  over  with  flowers. 
This  was  the  garb  of  fifty  or  more  youths,  who  en- 
circled the  person  of  the  leader.  They  were  sur- 
rounded by  ranks,  six  or  more  in  depth,  consisting  of 
tall,  brawny,  fierce-visaged  men  covered  with  crim- 
son or  purple  velvet  bonnets,  and  nodding  plumes 
of  the  eagle  and  the  hawk,  or  branches  of  pine, 
yew,  oak,  fern,  boxwood,  or  flowering  heath.  Their 
jerkins  were  always  of  a  hue  that  might  attract  the 
eye  of  ladies  in  the  bower  or  serving- damsels  at  the 
washing-green.  They  had  breeches  of  immense 
capacity  so  padded  or  stufled  as  to  make  each  man 
occupy  the  space  of  five  in  their  natural  propor- 
tions ;  and  in  this  seeming  soft  raiment  they  con- 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  IO5 

cealed  weapons  of  defence  or  offence,  with  which 
to  arm  themselves  and  the  body-guard  if  occasion 
called  for  resistance.  To  appearance,  they  had  no 
object  but  careless  sport  and  glee,  —  some  playing 
on  the  Scottish  harp,  others  blowing  the  bagpipes  or 
beating  targets  for  drums,  or  jingling  bells.  When- 
ever the  procession  halted  they  danced,  flourishing 
about  the  banners  of  their  leader.  The  exterior 
bands  perhaps  represented  in  dumb  show  or  pan- 
tomime the  actions  of  warriors  or  the  wildest  buf- 
foonery ;  and  these  were  followed  by  crowds  who, 
with  all  the  grimaces  and  phrases  of  waggery, 
solicited  money  or  garniture  from  the  nobles  and 
gentry  that  came  to  gaze  upon  them.  Wherever 
they  appeared,  multitudes  joined  them,  some  for 
the  sake  of  jollity,  and  not  a  few  to  have  their  fate 
predicted  by  spae-wives,  warlocks,  and  interpreters 
of  dreams,  who  invariably  were  found  in  the  train 
of  the  Abbot  of  Unreason." 

In  England,  not  only  was  this  merry  monarch 
appointed  over  the  revelries  of  the  great  and  the 
opulent,  but — as  of  most  of  the  forms  of  amuse- 
ment over  which  he  presided,  so  of  the  president 
himself  —  we  find  a  rude  imitation  in  the  Christ- 
mas celebrations  of  the  commonalty.  Nor  was 
the  practice  confined  to  towns  or  left  exclusively 
in  the  hands  of  corporate  or  public  bodies.  The 
quotation  which  we  have  already  made  from 
Stubs's  "  Anatomic  of  Abuses,"  refers  to  a  rustic 
Lord  of  Misrule  ;  and  while  the  antics  which  took 


Io6  THE    BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

place  under  his  governance  do  not  seem  to  have 
risen  much  above  the  performances  of  the  morris- 
dancers,  the  gaudiness  of  the  tinsel  attire  paraded  by 
him  and  his  band  forms  an  excellent  burlesque  of 
the  more  costly  finery  of  their  superiors.  Nay,  the 
amusements  themselves  exhibit  nearly  as  much  wis- 
dom as  those  of  the  court  (with  less  of  pretension), 
and  we  dare  say  created  a  great  deal  more  fun  at 
a  far  less  cost.  As  to  the  Scottish  practices,  our 
readers  will  not  fail  to  observe  from  our  last  quo- 
tation that  the  lordly  Abbot  and  his  train  were  little 
better  than  a  set  of  morris-dancers  themselves,  and 
that  so  much  of  their  practices  as  was  innocent 
differed  nothing  from  those  which  Stubs  and  his 
brother  Puritans  deemed  so  ridiculous  in  a  set  of 
parish  revellers.  In  fact,  the  Lord  of  Misrule  seems 
to  have  set  himself  up  all  over  the  land ;  and  many 
a  village  had  its  master  Simon  who  took  care  that 
the  sports  should  not  languish  for  want  of  that 
unity  of  purpose  and  concentration  of  mirth  to 
which  some  directing  authority  is  so  essential. 

We  have  already  stated,  and  have  made  it  quite 
apparent  in  our  descriptions,  that  the  Christmas 
celebrations  of  the  more  exalted  classes  are  not 
put  forward  for  the  consideration  of  our  readers 
on  the  ground  of  any  great  wisdom  in  the  matter 
or  humor  in  the  manner  of  those  celebrations 
themselves.  But  we  claim  for  them  serious  ven- 
eration, in  right  of  the  excellence  of  the  spirit  in 
which  they  originated,  and  the  excellence  of  the 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  107 

result  which  they  produced.  The  very  extrav- 
agance of  the  court  pageantries  —  their  profuse  ex- 
penditure and  grotesque  displays  —  were  so  many 
evidences  of  the  hearty  reception  which  was  given 
to  the  season  in  the  highest  places,  and  so  many 
conspicuous  sanctions  under  which  the  spirit  of 
unrestrained  rejoicing  made  its  appeals  in  the  lowest. 
This  ancient  festival  of  all  ranks,  consecrated  by 
all  religious  feelings  and  all  moral  influences ;  this 
privileged  season  of  the  lowly;  this  Sabbath  of 
the  poor  man's  year,  —  was  recognized  by  his  su- 
periors with  high  observance  and  honored  by  his 
governors  with  ceremonious  state.  The  mirth  of 
the  humble  and  uneducated  man  received  no  check 
from  the  assumption  of  an  unseasonable  gravity  or 
ungenerous  reserve  on  the  part  of  those  with  whom  , 
fortune  had  dealt  more  kindly,  and  to  whom  knowl- 
edge had  opened  her  stores.  The  moral  effect  of 
all  this  was  of  the  most  valuable  kind.  Nothing 
so  much  promotes  a  reciprocal  kindliness  of  feeling 
as  a  community  of  enjoyment ;  and  the  bond  of 
good  will  was  thus  drawn  tighter  between  those 
remote  classes,  whose  differences  of  privilege,  of 
education,  and  of  pursuit,  are  perpetually  operating 
to  loosen  it,  and  threatening  to  dissolve  it  alto- 
gether. There  was  a  great  deal  of  wisdom  in  all 
this ;  and  the  result  was  well  worth  producing 
even  at  the  cost  of  much  more  folly  than  our 
ancestors  expended  on  it.  We  deny  that  spec- 
tacles  and   a  wig  are   the   inseparable  symbols  of 


108  THE   BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

sapience ;  and  we  hold  that  portion  of  the  world 
to  be  greatly  mistaken  which  supposes  that  wisdom 
may  not  occasionally  put  on  the  cap.  and  bells,  and 
under  that  disguise  be  wisdom  still !  The  ancient 
custom  which  made  what  was  called  a  fool  a  part 
of  the  establishment  of  princes,  and  gave  him  a 
right  in  virtue  of  his  bauble  to  teach  many  a  wise 
lesson  and  utter  many  a  wholesome  truth  —  besides 
its  practical  utility,  contained  as  excellent  a  moral 
and  was  conceived  in  as  deep  a  spirit  as  the  still 
more  ancient  one  of  the  skeleton  at  a  feast.  "  Cu- 
cullus  non  facit  monachum,^''  says  one  of  those  priv- 
ileged gentry,  in  the  pages  of  one  who,  we  are 
sure,  could  have  enacted  a  Christmas  foolery  with 
the  most  foolish,  and  yet  had  "  sounded  all  the 
depths  and  shallows  "  of  the  human  mind,  and  was 
himself  the  wisest  of  modern  men.  "  Better  a 
witty  fool  than  a  foolish  wit."  There  is  a  long 
stride  from  the  wisdom  of  that  sneering  philoso- 
pher who  laughed  at  his  fellows  to  his  who  on 
proper  occasions  can  laugh  with  them ;  and  in 
spite  of  all  that  modern  philosophy  may  say  to 
the  contrary,  there  was  in  the  very  extravagances 
of  Coke  and  Hatton,  and  other  lawyers  and  states- 
men of  past  times  —  if  they  aimed  at  such  a  result 
as  that  which  we  have  mentioned,  and  in  so  far  as 
they  contributed  thereto  —  more  real  wisdom  than 
all  which  they  enunciated  in  their  more  solemn 
moods,  or  have  put  upon  record  in  their  books  of 
the  law. 


THE   CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  IO9 

In  the  same  excellent  spirit,  too,  everything  was 
done  that  could  assist  in  promoting  the  same  val- 
uable effect ;  and  while  the  pageantries  which  were 
prepared  by  the  court  and  by  other  governing 
bodies  furnished  a  portion  of  the  entertainments  by 
which  the  populace  tasted  the  season  in  towns,  and 
sanctioned  the  rest,  care  was  taken  in  many  ways 
(of  which  we  have  given  an  example)  that  the  fes- 
tival should  be  spread  over  the  country,  and  pro- 
vision made  for  its  maintenance  in  places  more 
secluded  and  remote.  A  set  of  arrangements  sprang 
up  which  left  no  man  without  their  influence ;  and 
figuratively  and  literally,  the  crumbs  from  the  table 
of  the  rich  man's  festival  were  abundantly  enjoyed 
by  the  veriest  beggar  at  his  gate.  The  kindly 
spirit  of  Boaz  was  abroad  in  all  the  land,  and  every 
Ruth  had  leave  to  "  eat  of  the  bread  and  dip  her 
morsel  in  the  vinegar."  At  that  great  harvest  of 
rejoicing,  all  men  were  suffered  to  glean  ;  and  they 
with  whom  at  most  other  seasons  the  world  had 
"  dealt  very  bitterly  "  —  whose  names  were  Mara, 
and  who  ate  sparingly  of  the  bread  of  toil  —  gleaned 
"  even  among  its  sheaves,"  and  no  man  reproached 
them.  The  old  English  gentleman,  like  the  gen- 
erous Bethlehemite  in  the  beautiful  story,  even 
scattered  that  the  poor  might  gather,  and  "  com- 
manded his  young  men  saying,  .  .  .  '  Let  fall  also 
some  of  the  handfuls  of  purpose  for  them  and  leave 
them,  that  they  may  glean  them,  and  rebuke  them 
not.'  "    And  the  prayer  of  many  a  Naomi  went  up  in 


no  THE    BOOK   OF  CHRISTMAS. 

answer,  "  Blessed  be  he  that  did  take  knowledge  of 
thee  ; "  "  blessed  be  he  of  the  Lord  !  " 

In  a  word,  the  blaze  of  royal  and  noble  celebra- 
tion was  as  a  great  beacon  to  the  land,  seen  afar 
off  by  those  who  could  not  share  in  its  warmth 
or  sit  under  the  influence  of  its  immediate  inspira- 
tions. But  it  was  answered  from  every  hill-top 
and  repeated  in  every  valley  of  England  ;  and  each 
man  flung  the  Yule  log  on  his  own  fire  at  the  cheer- 
ing signal.  The  hearth,  according  to  Aubrey,  at 
the  first  introduction  of  coals,  was  usually  in  the 
middle  of  the  room ;  and  he  derives  from  thence 
the  origin  of  the  saying,  "  round  about  our  coal 
fire."  But  whether  the  huge  fagot  crackled  and 
flustered  within  those  merry  circles  or  flared  and 
roared  up  the  ample  chimneys,  —  all  social  feelings, 
and  all  beautiful  superstitions  and  old  traditions 
and  local  observances  awoke  at  the  blaze  ;  and  from 
their  thousand  hiding-places  crept  out  the  customs 
and  ceremonials  which  crowd  this  festal  period  of 
the  year,  and  of  which  it  is  high  time  that  we  should 
proceed  to  give  an  account  in  these  pages.  The 
charmed  log  that  (duly  lighted  with  the  last  year's 
brand,  which,  as  we  learn  from  Herrick,  was  essen- 
tial to  its  virtue)  scared  away  all  evil  spirits,  at- 
tracted all  beneficent  ones.  The  'squire  sat  in  the 
midst  of  his  tenants  as  a  patriarch  might  amid  his 
family,  and  appears  to  have  had  no  less  reverence, 
though  he  compounded  the  wassail-bowl  with  his 
own  hands  and  shared  it  with  the  meanest  of  his 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  Ill 

dependants.  The  little  book  from  which  we  have 
more  than  once  quoted  by  the  title  of  "  Round 
about  our  Coal-fire,"  furnishes  us  with  an  example 
of  this  reverence  too  ludicrous  to  be  omitted.  Its 
writer  tells  us  that  if  the  'squire  had  occasion  to  ask 
one  of  his  neighbors  what  o'clock  it  was,  he  re- 
ceived for  answer  a  profound  bow  and  an  assur- 
ance that  it  was  what  o'clock  his  worship  pleased,  — 
an  answer,  no  doubt,  indicative  of  profound  respect, 
but  not  calculated  to  convey  much  useful  informa- 
tion to  the  inquirer.  In  fine,  however,  while  the 
glad  spirit  of  the  season  covered  the  land,  hospi- 
tality and  harmony  were  everywhere  a  portion  of 
that  spirit.  The  light  of  a  common  festival  shone 
for  once  upon  the  palace  and  the  cottage,  and  the 
chain  of  a  universal  sympathy  descended  unbroken 
through  all  ranks,  from  the  prince  to  the  peasant 
and  the  beggar. 

"  The  damsel  donned  her  kirtle  sheen ; 
The  hall  was  dress'd  with  holly  green; 
Forth  to  the  wood  did  merry  men  go, 
To  gather  in  the  misletoe. 
Then  opened  wide  the  baron's  hall, 
To  vassal],  tenant,  serf  and  all ; 
Power  laid  his  rod  of  rule  aside, 
And  ceremony  doffed  his  pride. 
The  heir,  with  roses  in  his  shoes, 
Those  nights  might  village  partner  chuse  ; 
The  lord,  underogating,  share 
The  vulgar  game  of  '  post-and-pair.' 

The  fire  with  well-dried  logs  supplied, 
Went  roaring  up  the  chimney  wide  ; 


112  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

The  huge  hall-table's  oaken  face, 

Scrubbed  till  it  shone,  the  time  to  grace. 

Bore  then  upon  its  massive  board 

No  mark  to  part  the  'squire  and  loYd. 

Then  was  brought  in  the  lusty  brawn, 

By  old  blue-coated  serving-man ; 

Then  the  grim  boar's  head  frowned  on  high. 

Crested  with  bays  and  rosemary. 

Well  can  the  green-garbed  ranger  tell, 

How,  when,  and  where,  the  monster  fell ; 

What  dogs,  before  his  death,  he  tore, 

And  all  the  batings  of  the  boar. 

The  wassail  round,  in  good  brown  bowls, 

Garnished  with  ribbons,  blithely  trowls. 

There  the  huge  sirloin  reeked ;  hard  by 

Plumb-porridge  stood,  and  Christmas  pye  ; 

Nor  failed  old  Scotland  to  produce. 

At  such  high-tide,  her  savoury  goose. 

Then  came  the  merry  masquers  in. 

And  carols  roared  with  blithesome  din; 

If  unmelodious  was  the  song. 

It  was  a  hearty  note,  and  strong. 

Who  lists  may,  in  their  mumming,  see 

Traces  of  ancient  mystery  ; 

White  shirts  supplied  the  masquerade. 

And  smutted  cheeks  the  visors  made  : 

But,  Oh  !  what  masquers,  richly  dight. 

Can  boast  of  bosoms  half  so  light .'' 

England  was  merry  England,  when 

Old  Christmas  brought  his  sports  again. 

'T  was  Christmas  broached  the  mightiest  ale, 

'T  was  Christmas  told  the  merriest  tale, 

A  Christmas  gambol  oft  would  cheer 

The  poor  man's  heart  through  half  the  year." 

The  ceremonies  and  superstitions  and  sports  of 
the  Christmas  season  are  not  only  various  in  various 
places,  but  have  varied  from  time  to  time  in  the 


THE   CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  II3 

same.  Those  of  them  which  have  their  root  in  the 
festival  itself  are  for  the  most  part  common  to  all, 
and  have  dragged  out  a  lingering  existence  even  to 
our  times.  But  there  are  many  which,  springing 
from  other  sources,  have  placed  themselves  under 
its  protection  or,  naturally  enough,  sought  to  asso- 
ciate themselves  with  merry  spirits  like  their  own. 
Old  Father  Christmas  has  had  a  great  many  children 
in  his  time,  some  of  whom  he  has  survived  ;  and 
not  only  so,  but  in  addition  to  his  own  lawful  off- 
spring the  generous  old  man  has  taken  under  his 
patronage  and  adopted  into  his  family  many  who 
have  no  legitimate  claim  to  that  distinction  by  any 
of  the  wives  to  whom  he  has  been  united,  —  neither 
by  the  Roman  lady,  his  lady  of  the  Celtic  family, 
nor  her  whom  he  took  to  his  bosom  and  con- 
verted from  the  idolatry  of  Thor.  His  family 
appears  to  have  been  generally  far  too  numerous 
to  be  entertained  at  one  time  in  the  same  establish- 
ment, or  indeed  by  the  same  community,  and  to 
have  rarely  travelled  therefore  in  a  body. 

In  Ben  Jonson's  Masque  of  Christmas,  to  which 
we  have  already  alluded,  the  old  gentleman  is 
introduced  "  attired  in  round  hose,  long  stockings, 
a  close  doublet,  a  high-crowned  hat  with  a  broach, 
a  long  thin  beard,  a  truncheon,  little  ruffs,  white 
shoes,  his  scarfs  and  garters  tied  cross,  and  his 
drum  beaten  before  him,"  and  is  accompanied  by 
the  following  members  of  his  fine  family :  Miss- 
rule,   Caroll,    Minced-pie,   Gamboll,   Post-and- 


114  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

Pair  (since  dead),  New  Year's  Gift,  Mumming, 
Wassail,  Offering,  and  Baby-Cake,  —  or  Baby- 
CocKE,  as  we  find  him  elsewhere  •  called,  but  who 
we  fear  is  dead  too,  unless  he  may  have  changed 
his  name,  for  we  still  find  one  of  the  family  bearing 
some  resemblance  to  the  description  of  him  given 
by  Ben  Jonson. 

In  the  frontispiece  to  this  volume  the  artist  has 
represented  the  old  man  like  another  magician, 
summoning  his  spirits  from  the  four  winds  for  a 
general  muster ;  and  we  hope  that  the  greater  part 
of  them  will  obey  his  conjuration.  The  purpose, 
we  believe,  is  to  take  a  review  of  their  condition 
and  see  if  something  cannot  be  done  to  amend  their 
prospects,  —  in  which  it  is  our  purpose  to  assist  him. 
Already  some  of  the  children  have  appeared  on  the 
stage  ;  and  the  rest,  we  have  no  doubt,  are  advan- 
cing in  all  directions.  We  are  glad  to  see  amongst 
the  foremost,  as  he  ought  to  be.  Roast  Beef, — that 
English  "  champion  bold "  who  has  driven  the 
invader  hunger  from  the  land  in  many  a  well- 
fought  fray,  and  for  his  doughty  deeds  was  created 
a  knight  banneret  on  one  of  his  own  gallant  fields 
so  long  ago  as  King  Charles's  time.  We  sup- 
pose he  is  the  same  worthy  who,  in  the  Romish 
calendar,  appears  canonized  by  the  title  of  Saint 
George,  where  his  great  adversary  Famine  is 
represented  under  the  figure  of  a  dragon.  Still 
following  Roast  Beef,  as  he  has  done  for  many  a 
long  year,  we  perceive  his  faithful  'squire   (bottle- 


THE    CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  115 

holder  if  you  will)  Plum  Pudding,  with  his  rich 
round  face  and  rosemary  cockade.  He  is  a  blacka- 
moor, and  derives  his  extraction  from  the  spice 
lands.  His  Oriental  properties  have  however  re- 
ceived an  English  education  and  taken  an  English 
form,  and  he  has  long  ago  been  adopted  into  the 
family  of  Father  Christmas.  In  his  younger  days 
his  name  was  "  Plumb- Porridge  "  :  but  since  he 
grew  up  to  be  the  substantial  man  he  is,  it  has  been 
changed  into  the  one  he  now  bears,  as  indicative 
of  greater  consistency  and  strength.  His  master 
treats  him  like  a  brother;  and  he  has,  in  return, 
done  good  service  against  the  enemy  in  many  a 
hard-fought  field,  cutting  off  all  straggling  detach- 
ments or  flying  parties  from  the  main  body,  which 
the  great  champion  had  previously  routed.  Both 
these  individuals,  we  think,  are  looking  as  vigorous 
as  they  can  ever  have  done  in  their  lives,  and  offer 
in  their  well-maintained  and  portly  personages  a 
strong  presumption  that  they  at  least  have  at  no 
time  ceased  to  be  favorite  guests  at  the  festivals  of 
the  land. 

Near  them  stands,  we  rejoice  to  see,  their  favorite 
sister  Wassail.  She  was  of  a  slender  figure  in  Ben 
Jonson's  day,  and  is  so  still.  If  the  garb  in  which 
she  appears  has  a  somewhat  antiquated  appearance, 
there  is  a  play  of  the  lip  and  a  twinkle  of  the  eye 
which  prove  that  the  glowing  and  joyous  spirit 
which  made  our  ancestors  so  merry  "ages  long 
ago,"  and  helped  them  out  with  so  many  a  pleasant 


Il6  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

fancy  and  quaint  device,  is  not  a  day  older  than  it 
was  in  the  time  of  King  Arthur.  How  should  she 
grow  old  who  bathes  in  such  a  bowl?  It  is  her 
fount  of  perpetual  youth  !  Why,  even  mortal  hearts 
grow  younger,  and  mortal  spirits  lighter,  as  they 
taste  of  its  charmed  waters.  There  it  is,  with  its 
floating  apples  and  hovering  inspirations  !  We  see 
too,  that  the  "  tricksy  spirit,"  whose  head  bears  it 
(and  that  is  more  than  every  head  could  do)  has 
lost  none  of  his  gambols,  and  that  he  is  still  on  the 
best  of  terms  with  the  Turkey  who  has  been  his 
playfellow  at  these  holiday-times  for  so  many  years. 
The  latter,  we  suppose,  has  just  come  up  from  Nor- 
folk, where  Father  Christmas  puts  him  to  school ; 
and  the  meeting  on  both  sides  seems  to  be  of  the 
most  satisfactory  kind. 

Mumming  also,  we  see,  has  obeyed  the  summons, 
although  he  looks  as  if  he  had  come  from  a  long 
distance  and  did  not  go  about  much  now.  We 
fancy  he  has  become  something  of  a  student.  Mis- 
rule too,  we  believe,  has  lost  a  good  deal  of  his 
mercurial  spirit,  and  finds  his  principal  resource  in 
old  books.  He  has  come  to  the  muster,  however, 
with  a  very  long  "  feather  in  his  cap,"  as  if  he  con- 
sidered the  present  summons  portentous  of  good 
fortune.  He  looks  as  if  he  were  not  altogether 
without  hopes  of  taking  office  again.  We  observe 
with  great  satisfaction,  that  the  Lord  of  Twelfth 
Night  has  survived  the  revolutions  which  have  been 
fatal  to  the  King  of  the  Cockneys  and  so  many  of 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  II7 

his  royal  brethren  ;  and  that  he  is  still  "  every  inch 
a  king."  Yonder  he  comes  under  a  state-canopy  of 
cake,  and  wearing  yet  his  ancient  crown.  The  lady 
whom  we  see  advancing  in  the  distance  we  take 
to  be  Saint  Distaff.  She  used  to  be  a  sad  romp ; 
but  her  merriest  days  we  fear  are  over,  for  she  is 
looking  very  like  an  old  maid.  Not  far  behind  her 
we  fancy  we  can  hear  the  clear  voice  of  CaroU  sing- 
ing as  he  comes  along;  and  if  our  ears  do  not 
deceive  us,  the  Waits  are  coming  up  in  another 
direction.  The  children  are  dropping  in  on  all 
sides. 

But  what  is  he  that  looks  down  from  yonder 
pedestal  in  the  back-ground  upon  the  merry  mus- 
ter, with  a  double  face  ?  And  why,  while  the  holly 
and  the  mistletoe  mingle  with  the  white  tresses  that 
hang  over  the  brow  of  the  one,  is  the  other  hidden 
by  a  veil  ?  The  face  on  which  we  gaze  is  the  face 
of  an  old  man,  and  a  not  uncheerful  old  man,  —  a 
face  marked  by  many  a  scar,  by  the  channels  of 
tears  that  have  been  dried  up  and  the  deep  traces 
of  sorrows  past  away.  Yet  does  it  look  placidly 
down  from  beneath  its  crown  of  evergreens  on  the 
joyous  crew  who  are  assembled  at  the  voice  of 
Christmas.  But  what  aspect  hath  that  other  face 
which  no  man  can  see  ?  Why  doth  our  flesh  creep 
and  the  blood  curdle  in  our  veins  as  we  gaze? 
What  awful  mystery  doth  that  dark  curtain  hide? 
What  may  be  written  on  that  covered  brow,  that 
the  old  man  dare  not  lift  the  veil  and  show  it  to 


Il8  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

those  laughing  children  ?  Much,  much,  much  that 
might  spoil  the  revels.  Much  that  man  might  not 
know  and  yet  bear  to  abide.  That  twin  face  is  Janus, 
he  who  shuts  the  gates  upon  the  old  year  and  opens 
those  of  the  new,  he  who  looks  into  the  past  and 
into  the  future,  and  catches  the  reflections  of  both, 
and  has  the  tales  of  each  written  on  his  respective 
brows.  For  the  past,  it  is  known  and  has  been 
suffered ;  and  even  at  a  season  like  this  we  can 
pause  to  retrace  the  story  of  its  joys  and  of  its  sor- 
rows as  they  are  graven  on  that  open  forehead, —  and 
from  that  retrospect,  glancing  to  the  future  for  hope, 
can  still  turn  to  the  present  for  enjoyment.  But 
oh,  that  veil  and  its  solemn  enigmas  !  On  that  other 
brow  may  be  written  some  secret  which,  putting  out 
the  light  of  hope,  should  add  the  darkness  of  the 
future  to  the  darkness  of  the  past,  until,  amid  the 
gloom  before  and  the  gloom  behind,  the  festal 
lamps  of  the  season,  looked  on  by  eyes  dim  with 
our  own  tears,  should  show  as  sad  as  tapers  lighted 
up  in  the  chamber  of  the  dead.  God  in  mercy 
keep  down  that  veil ! 

"  Such  foresight  who  on  earth  would  crave, 
Where  knowledge  is  not  power  to  save  ?  " 

It  will  be  our  business  to  introduce  to  our  readers 
each  of  the  children  of  old  Christmas  as  they  come 
up  in  obedience  to  the  summons  of  their  father, 
reserving  to  ourselves  the  right  of  settling  the  order 
of  their  precedence ;  and  we  will  endeavor  to  give 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  II9 

some  account  of  the  part  which  each  played  of  old 
in  the  revelries  of  the  season  peculiarly  their  own, 
and  of  the  sad  changes  which  time  has  made  in  the 
natural  constitutions,  or  animal  spirits,  of  some  of 
them.  Preparatory,  however,  to  this  we  must  en- 
deavor to  give  a  rapid  glance  at  the  causes  which 
contributed  to  the  decay  of  a  festival  so  ancient  and 
universal  and  uproarious  as  that  which  we  have  de- 
scribed, and  brought  into  the  old  man's  family  that 
disease  to  which  some  of  them  have  already  fallen 
victims,  and  which  threatens  others  with  an  untimely 
extinction. 

We  have  already  shown  that  so  early  as  the  reign 
of  Elizabeth  the  Puritans  had  begim  to  lift  up  their 
testimony  against  the  pageantries  of  the  Christmas- 
tide  ;  and  the  Lord  of  Misrule,  even  in  that  day  of 
his  potential  ascendancy,  was  described  as  little 
better  than  the  great  Enemy  of  Souls  himself.  Our 
friend  Stubs  (whose  denunciations  were  directed 
against  a//  amusements  which  from  long  usage  and 
estabUshed  repetition  had  assumed  anything  like  a 
form  of  ceremonial,  and  who  is  quite  as  angry  with 
those  who  "  goe  some  to  the  woodes  and  groves 
and  some  to  the  hilles  and  mountaines  ....  where 
they  spende  all  the  night  in  pastymes,  and  in  the 
mornyng  they  return  bringing  with  them  birch 
bowes  and  braunches  of  trees  to  deck  their  assem- 
blies withall,"  in  the  sweet  month  of  May,  as  he 
could  possibly  be  with  the  Christmas  revellers,  al- 
though the  very  language  in  which  he  is  obliged  to 


I20  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

State  the  charge  against  the  former  was  enough  to 
tempt  people  out  "  a  Maying,"  and  might  ahnost 
have  converted  himself)  assures  the  reader  of  his 
"  Anatomie  "  that  all  who  contribute  "  to  the  main- 
tenaunce  of  these  execrable  pasty mes  "  do  neither 
more  nor  less  than  "  offer  sacrifice  to  the  devill  and 
Sathanas."  It  is  probable,  however,  that  the  people 
of  those  days,  who  were  a  right  loyal  people  and 
freely  acknowledged  the  claim  of  their  sovereigns  to 
an  absolute  disposition  of  all  their  temporalities 
(any  of  the  common  or  statute  laws  of  the  land 
notwithstanding) ,  considered  it  a  part  of  their  loy- 
alty to  be  damned  in  company  with  their  sover- 
eigns, too,  and  resolved  that  so  long  as  these  in- 
iquities obtained  the  royal  patronage  it  was  of  their 
allegiance  to  place  themselves  in  the  same  category 
of  responsibility.  Or  perhaps  their  notion  of  regal 
prerogative,  which  extended  so  far  as  to  admit  its 
right  to  mould  the  national  law  at  its  good  pleasure, 
might  go  the  further  length  of  ascribing  to  it  a  con- 
trolling power  over  the  moral  statutes  of  right  and 
wrong,  and  of  pleading  its  sanction  against  the  men- 
aces of  Master  Stubs.  Or  it  may  be  that  Master 
Stubs  had  failed  to  convince  them  that  they  were 
wrong,  even  without  an  appeal  to  the  royal  dispensa- 
tion. Certain  it  is  that,  in  spite  of  all  that  Master 
Stubs  and  his  brethren  could  say,  the  sway  of  the 
Lord  of  Misrule,  and  the  revels  of  his  court  continued 
to  flourish  with  increasing  splendor  during  this  reign, 
and,  as  we  have  seen,  lost  no  portion  of  their  mag- 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  121 

nificence  during  the  two  next,  although  in  that  time 
had  arisen  the  great  champion  of  the  Puritans, 
Prynne,  and  against  them  and  their  practices  had 
been  directed  whole  volumes  of  vituperation,  and 
denounced  large  vials  of  wrath. 

In  Scotland,  however,  where  the  reformation  took 
a  sterner  tone  than  in  the  southern  kingdom,  and 
where,  as  we  have  said,  the  irregularities  committed 
under  cover  of  the  Christmas  and  other  ceremo- 
nials laid  them  more  justly  open  to  its  censure,  the 
effect  of  this  outcry  was  earlier  and  far  more  sen- 
sibly felt ;  and  even  so  early  as  the  reign  of  Queen 
Mary  an  act  passed  the  Scottish  Parliament  whereby 
the  Abbot  of  Unreason  and  all  his  "  merrie  dis- 
ports "  were  suppressed. 

In  England,  it  is  true  that,  according  to  Sandys, 
an  order  of  the  common  council  had  issued  as 
early  as  the  beginning  of  our  Mary's  reign  prohibit- 
ing the  Lord  Mayor  or  Sheriffs  from  entertaining  a 
Lord  of  Misrule  in  any  of  their  houses ;  but  this 
appears  to  have  been  merely  on  financial  grounds, 
with  a  view  of  reducing  the  corporation  expendi- 
ture, and  to  have  extended  no  further. 

It  was  not,  however,  until  after  the  breaking  out 
of  the  Civil  War  that  the  persecution  of  the  Puritans 
(who  had  long  and  zealously  labored  not  only  to 
resolve  the  various  ceremonials  of  the  season  into 
their  pagan  elements,  but  even  to  prove  that  the  cel- 
ebration of  the  Nativity  at  all  was  in  itself  idol- 
atrous) succeeded  to  any  extent  in  producing  that 


122  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

result  which  the  war  itself  and  the  consequent  dis- 
organization of  society  must  in  a  great  measure 
have  effected  even  without  the  aid  of  a  fanatical 
outcry.  In  the  very  first  year  of  that  armed  strug- 
gle the  earliest  successful  blow  was  struck  against 
the  festivities  with  which  it  had  been  usual  to  cel- 
ebrate this  period  of  the  year,  in  certain  ordinances 
which  were  issued  for  suppressing  the  performance 
of  plays  and  other  diversions ;  and  in  the  follow- 
ing year  some  of  the  shops  in  London  were  for  the 
first  time  opened  on  Christmas  day,  in  obedience  to 
the  feelings  which  connected  any  observance  of  it 
with  the  spirit  of  popery.  By  the  year  1647  the 
Puritans  had  so  far  prevailed  that  in  various  places 
the  parish  officers  were  subjected  to  penalties  for 
encouraging  the  decking  of  churches  and  permitting 
divine  service  to  be  performed  therein  on  Christmas 
morning ;  and  in  the  same  year  the  observance 
of  the  festival  itself,  with  that  of  other  holidays, 
was  formally  abolished  by  the  two  branches  of  the 
legislature. 

It  was  found,  impossible  however,  by  all  these 
united  means,  to  eradicate  the  Christmas  spirit  from 
the  land  ;  and  many  of  its  customs  and  festivities 
continued  to  be  observed,  not  only  in  obscure 
places,  but  even  in  towns,  in  spite  of  prohibition 
and  in  spite  of  the  disarrangement  of  social  ties. 
The  contest  between  the  Puritan  spirit  and  the 
ancient  spirit  of  celebration  led  to  many  contests ; 
and  we  have  an  account  —  in  a  little  book  of  which 


THE   CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  1 23 

we  have  seen  a  copy  in  the  British  Museum,  en- 
titled "Canterbury  Christmas,  or  a  True  Relation 
of  the  Insurrection  in  Canterbury  "  —  of  the  disturb- 
ances which  ensued  in  that  city  upon  the  Mayor's 
proclamation,  issued  in  consequence  of  that  Par- 
liamentary prohibition  at  the  Christmas  which  fol- 
lowed. This  said  proclamation,  it  appears,  which 
was  made  by  the  city  crier,  was  to  the  effect  "  that 
Christmas  day  and  all  other  superstitious  festivals 
should  be  put  downe  and  that  a  market  should  be 
kept  upon  Christmas  day."  This  order,  it  goes  on 
to  state,  was  "  very  ill  taken  by  the  country,"  the 
people  of  which  neglected  to  bring  their  provisions 
into  the  town,  and  gave  other  tokens  of  their  dis- 
pleasure of  a  less  negative  kind.  For,  a  few  of  the 
shopkeepers  in  the  city,  "  to  the  number  of  twelve 
at  the  most,"  having  ventured  to  open  their  shops 
in  defiance  of  the  general  feeling,  "  they  were  com- 
manded by  the  multitude  to  shut  up  again  ;  but  re- 
fusing to  obey,  their  ware  was  thrown  up  and  down 
and  they  at  last  forced  to  shut  in," 

Nor  were  the  revilings  of  the  Puritans  against  the 
lovers  of  Christmas  observances  suffered  to  remain 
unanswered.  Many  a  squib  was  directed  against 
the  Roundheads ;  and  the  popular  regret  for  the 
suppression  of  their  high  festival  was  skilfully  ap- 
pealed to  by  Royalist  politicians  and  favorers  of  the 
ancient  religion.  The  connection  between  the  new 
condition  of  things  in  Church  and  State  and  the  ex- 
tinction of  all  the  merriment  of  the  land  was  carefully 


124  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

suggested  in  publications  that  stole  out  in  spite  of 
penalties  and  were  read  in  defiance  of  prohibitions. 
As  an  example,  that  curious  little  tract  from  which 
we  have  more  than  once  quoted  under  the  title  of 
"  An  Hue  and  Cry  after  Christmas,"  bears  the  date 
of  1645  ;  and  we  shall  best  give  our  readers  an  idea 
of  its  character  by  setting  out  that  title  at  length, 
as  the  same  exhibits  a  tolerable  abstract  of  its  con- 
tents. It  runs  thus  :  "  The  arraingment,  convic- 
tion, and  imprisoning  of  Christmas  on  St.  Thomas 
day  last,  and  how  he  broke  out  of  prison  in  the 
holidayes  and  got  away,  onely  left  his  hoary  hair 
and  gray  beard  sticking  between  two  iron  bars  of  a 
window.  With  an  Hue  and  Cry  after  Christmas,  and 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Woodcock,  a  fellow  in  Oxford, 
to  a  malignant  lady  in  London.  And  divers  pas- 
sages between  the  lady  and  the  cryer  about  Old 
Christmas  ;  and  what  shift  he  was  fain  to  make  to 
save  his  life,  and  great  stir  to  fetch  him  back  again. 
Printed  by  Simon  Minc'd  Pye  for  Cissely  Plum- 
Porridge,  and  are  to  be  sold  by  Ralph  Fidler 
Chandler  at  the  signe  of  the  Pack  of  Cards  in  Mus- 
tard x\lley  in  Brawn  Street."  Besides  the  allusions 
contained  in  the  latter  part  of  this  title  to  some  of 
the  good  things  that  follow  in  the  old  man's  train, 
great  pains  are  taken  by  the  "  cryer  "  in  describing 
him,  and  by  the  lady  in  mourning  for  him,  to  allude 
to  many  of  the  cheerful  attributes  that  made  him 
dear  to  the  people.  His  great  antiquity  and  portly 
appearance  are  hkewise  insisted  upon.      "  For  age 


THE   CHRISTMAS    SEASON.  125 

this  hoarie-headed  man  was  of  great  yeares,  and  as 
white  as  snow.  He  entered  the  Romish  Kallendar, 
time  out  of  mind,  as  o'd  or  very  neer  as  Father 
Mathusalem  was,  —  one  that  looked  fresh  in  the 
Bishops'  time,  though  their  fall  made  him  pine  away 
ever  since.  He  was  full  and  fat  as  any  divine  doctor 
on  them  all ;  he  looked  under  the  consecrated  lawne 
sleeves  as  big  as  Bul-beefe, — just  like  Bacchus  up- 
on a  tunne  of  wine,  when  the  grapes  hang  shaking 
about  his  eares ;  but  since  the  Catholike  liquor  is 
taken  from  him  he  is  much  wasted,  so  that  he  hath 
looked  very  thin  and  ill  of  late."  ''The  poor," 
says  the  "cryer"  to  the  lady,  ''are  sory  for"  his 
departure ;  "for  they  go  to  every  door  a-begging, 
as  they  were  wont  to  do  {good  Mrs.,  Somewhat 
agavist  this  good  time)  ;  but  Time  was  transformed, 
Away,  be  gone;  here  is  not  for  you."  The  lady, 
however,  declares  that  she  for  one  will  not  be  de- 
terred from  welcoming  old  Christmas.  "  No,  no  !  " 
says  she ;  "  bid  him  come  by  night  over  the  Thames, 
and  we  will  have  a  back-door  open  to  let  him  in ;  " 
and  ends  by  anticipating  better  prospects  for  him 
another  year. 

And  by  many  a  back-door  was  the  old  man  let  in 
to  many  a  fireside  during  the  heaviest  times  of  all 
that  persecution  and  disgrace.  On  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Commonwealth,  when  the  more  settled 
state  of  things  removed  some  of  the  causes  which 
had  opposed  themselves  to  his  due  reception,  the 
contests  of  opposition  between  the  revived  spirit  of 


126  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

festival  and  the  increased  sectarian  austerity  became 
more  conspicuous.  There  is  an  order  of  the  Par- 
liament in  1652  again  prohibiting  the  obser\'ance  of 
Christmas  day,  which  proves  that  the  practice  had 
revived ;  and  there  are  examples  of  the  military 
having  been  employed  to  disperse  congregations 
assembled  for  that  purpose.  In  the  "  Vindication 
of  Christmas,"  published  about  this  time,  the  old 
gentleman,  after  complaining  bitterly  of  the  manner 
in  which  he  was  "  used  in  the  city,  and  wandering 
into  the  country  up  and  down  from  house  to  house, 
found  small  comfort  in  any,"  asserts  his  determi- 
nation not  to  be  so  repulsed  :  "  Welcome  or  not 
welcome,"  says  he,  "  I  am  come."  In  a  periodical 
publication  of  that  day  entitled  "  Mercurius  Democ- 
ritus,  or  a  True  and  Perfect  Nocturnall,  communi- 
cating many  strange  wonders  out  of  the  World  in 
the  Moon,  etc.,"  the  public  are  encouraged  to  keep 
Christmas,  and  promised  better  days.  No.  37  con- 
tains some  verses  to  that  effect,  of  which  the  follow- 
ing are  the  first  two  :  — 

"  Old  Christmass  now  is  come  to  town, 
Though  few  do  him  regard ; 
He  laughs  to  see  them  going  down, 
That  have  put  down  his  Lord. 

"  Cheer  up,  sad  heart,  crown  Christmass  bowls, 
Banish  dull  grief  and  sorrow  ; 
Though  you  want  cloaths,  you  have  rich  souls, 
The  sun  may  shine  to-morrow." 

And  again  in  No.  38  :  — 


THE    CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  12  7 

"  A  gallant  crew,  stir  up  the  fire, 
The  other  winter  tale, 
"Welcome,  Christmass,  'tis  our  desire 
To  give  thee  more  spic'd  ale." 

On  the  return  of  the  royal  family  to  England,  the 
court  celebrations  of  Christmas  were  revived  both 
there  and  at  the  Inns  of  Court ;  and  the  Lord  of 
Misrule  came  again  into  office.  We  have  allusions 
to  the  one  and  the  other  in  the  writings  of  Pepys 
and  of  Evelyn.  The  nobles  and  wealthy  gentry, 
too,  once  more  at  their  country-seats,  took  under 
their  protection  such  of  the  ancient  observances  as 
had  survived  the  persecution,  and  from  time  to  time 
stole  out  of  their  hiding-places  under  the  encour- 
agement of  the  new  order  of  things.  But  in  none 
of  its  ancient  haunts  did  the  festival  ever  again 
recover  its  splendor  of  old.  The  condition  of 
Charles's  exchequer,  and  the  many  charges  upon  it, 
—  arising  as  well  out  of  the  services  of  his  adhe- 
rents as  from  his  own  dissolute  life,  —  left  him  little 
chance  of  imitating  the  lavish  appointments  of  the 
court  pageantries  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth  and 
James ;  and  the  troubles  out  of  which  the  nation 
had  emerged  had  made  changes  as  well  in  the  face 
of  the  country  as  in  the  condition  and  character  of 
society,  alike  opposed  to  anything  like  a  general 
and  complete  revival  of  the  merry  doings  of  yore. 
In  the  country,  estates  had  passed  into  new  hands, 
and  the  immemorial  ties  between  the  ancient 
families  and  the  tenants  of  the  soil  had  been  rudely 


128  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

severed.  Many  of  the  old  establishments  in  which 
these  celebrations  had  been  most  zealously  ob- 
served, were  finally  broken  up ;  and  friends  who 
had  met  together  from  childhood  around  the 
Christmas  fire,  and  pledged  each  other  year  by  year 
in  the  wassail-bowl,  were  scattered  by  the  chances 
of  war.  But  out  of  this  disturbance  of  the  old 
localities  and  disruption  of  the  ancient  ties  of  the 
land,  a  result  still  more  fatal  to  these  old  observ- 
ances had  arisen,  promoted  besides  by  the  dissipa- 
tion of  manners  which  the  restored  monarch  had 
introduced  into  the  country.  Men  rooted  out 
from  their  ancestral  possessions  and  looking  to  a 
licentious  king  for  compensation,  became  hangers- 
on  about  the  court ;  and  others  who  had  no  such 
excuse,  seduced  by  their  example  and  enamoured  of 
the  gayeties  of  the  metropolis  and  the  profligacies 
of  Whitehall,  abandoned  the  shelter  of  the  old  trees 
beneath  whose  shade  their  fathers  had  fostered  the 
sanctities  of  life,  and  from  "  country  gentlemen " 
became  "men  about  town."  The  evils  of  this 
practice,  at  which  we  have  before  hinted  as  one  of 
those  to  which  the  decay  of  rural  customs  is  mainly 
owing,  began  to  be  early  felt,  and  form  the  topic  of 
frequent  complaint  and  the  subject  of  many  of  the 
popular  ballads  of  that  day.  The  song  of  the  "  Old 
and  Young  Courtier  "  was  written  for  the  purpose 
of  contrasting  the  good  old  manners  with  those  of 
Charles's  time  ;  and  the  effects  of  the  change  upon 
the  Christmas  hospitalities  has  due  and  particular 


THE   CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  T29 

notice  therein.  We  extract  it  from  the  Percy  col- 
lection for  our  readers,  as  appropriate  to  our  sub- 
ject and  a  sample  of  the  ballads  of  the  time  :  — 

THE  OLD  AND  YOUNG  COURTIER. 

An  old  song  made  by  an  aged  old  pate, 
0£  an  old  worshipful  gentleman  who  had  a  greate  estate, 
That  kept  a  brave  old  house  at  a  bountifuU  rate, 
And  an  old  porter  to  relieve  the  poor  at  his  gate  ; 

Like  an  old  courtier  of  the  Queen's, 

And  the  Queen's  old  courtier. 

With  an  old  lady,  whose  anger  one  word  assuages ; 
They  every  quarter  paid  their  old  servants  their  wages. 
And  never  knew  what  belong'd  to  coachmen,  footmen,  nor 

pages, 
But  kept  twenty  old  fellows  with  blue  coats  and  badges ; 
Like  an  old  courtier,  etc. 

With  an  old  study  fill'd  full  of  learned  old  books, 

With  an  old  reverend  chaplain, —  you  might  know  him  by 

his  looks,  — 
With  an  old  buttery  hatch  worn  quite  off  the  hooks, 
And  an  old  kitchen,  that  maintained  half-a-dozen  old  cooks ; 
Like  an  old  courtier,  etc. 

With  an  old  hall,  hung  about  with  pikes,  guns,  and  bows, 
With   old   swords,    and    bucklers    that   had    borne    many 

shrewde  blows, 
And  an  old  frize  coat,  to  cover  his  worship's  trunk  hose. 
And  a  cup  of  old  sherry  to  comfort  his  copper  nose ; 
Like  an  old  courtier,  etc. 

With  a  good  old  fashion,  when  Christmasse  was  come, 
To  call  in  all  his  old  neighbours  with  bagpipe  and  drum, 
9 


130  THE   BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

With  good  chear  enough  to  furnish  every  old  room, 
And  old  liquor  able  to  make  a  cat  speak,  and  man  dumb ; 
Like  an  old  courtier,  etc. 

With  an  old  falconer,  huntsman,  and  a  kennel  of  hounds. 
That  never  hawked,  nor  hunted,  but  in  his  own  grounds, 
Who,  like  a  wise  man,  kept  himself  within  his  own  bounds, 
And  when   he   dyed  gave   every  child   a  thousand  good 
pounds ; 

Like  an  old  courtier,  etc. 

But  to  his  eldest  son  his  house  and  land  he  assign'd. 
Charging  him  in  his  will  to  keep  the  old  bountifull  mind. 
To  be  good  to  his  old  tenants,  and  to  his  neighbours  be 

kind; 
But  in  the  ensuing  ditty  you  shall  hear  how  he  was  inclined ; 
Like  a  young  courtier,  etc. 

Like  a  flourishing  young  gallant,  newly  come  to  his  land. 
Who  keeps  a  brace  of  painted  madams  at  his  command. 
And  takes  up  a  thousand  pound  upon  his  father's  land, 
And  gets  drunk  in  a  tavern,  till  he  can  neither  go  nor 
stand ; 

Like  a  young  courtier,  etc. 

With  a  new-fangled  lady,  that  is  dandy,  nice,  and  spare, 
Who  never  knew  what  belong'd  to  good  housekeeping  or 

care. 
Who  buys  gaudy-color'd  fans  to  play  with  wanton  air, 
And  seven  or  eight  different  dressings  of  other  women's 

hair; 

Like  a  young  courtier,  etc. 

With  a  new-fashion'd  hall,  built  where  the  old  one  stood. 
Hung  round  with  new  pictures,  that  do  the  poor  no  good. 
With  a  fine  marble  chimney,  wherein  burns  neither  coal 

nor  wood, 
And  a  new  smooth  shovelboard,  whereon  no  victuals  ne'er 

stood ; 

Like  a  young  courtier,  etc. 


THE    CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  131 

With  a  new  study,  stuff'd  full  of  pamphlets  and  plays, 
And  a  new  chaplain,  that  swears  faster  than  he  prays, 
With  a  new  buttery-hatch  that  opens  once  in  four  or  five 

days, 
And  a  new  French  cook,  to  devise  fine  kickshaws  and  toys; 
Like  a  young  courtier,  etc. 

With  a  new  fashion,  when  Christmasse  is  drawing  on, 
On  a  new  journey  to  London  straight  we  all  must  begone, 
And  leave  none  to  keep  house,  but  our  new  porter  John, 
Who  relieves  the  poor  with  a  thump  on  the  back  with  a 
stone ; 

Like  a  young  courtier,  etc. 

With  a  new  gentleman  usher,  whose  carriage  is  compleat. 
With  a  new  coachman,  footmen,  and  pages  to  carry  up  the 

meat, 
With  a  waiting-gentlewoman,  whose  dressing  is  very  neat, 
Who  when  her  lady  has  din'd,  lets  the  servants  not  eat ; 
Like  a  young  courtier,  etc. 

With  new  titles  of  honour  bought  with  his  father's  old  gold, 
For  which  sundry  of  his  ancestors'  old  manors  are  sold  ; 
And  this  is  the  course  most  of  our  new  gallants  hold, 
Which  makes  that  good  housekeeping  is  now  grown  so 
cold, 

Among  the  young  courtiers  of  the  King, 
Or  the  King's  young  courtiers. 

In  a  word,  the  old  English  feeling  seemed  nearly 
extinct  for  a  time  ;  and  the  ancient  customs  which 
had  connected  themselves  therewith,  one  by  one 
fell  more  or  less  into  disuse.  The  chain  of  universal 
sympathy  and  general  observance,  which  had  long 
kept  the  festival  together  in  all  its  parts,  was  broken  ; 
and   the  parts   fell  asunder,  and  were  by  degrees 


132  THE    BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

lost  or  overlooked.  Let  no  man  say  that  this  is 
scarcely  worth  lamenting  I  Let  none  imagine  that, 
in  the  decay  of  customs  useless  or.  insignificant  in 
themselves,  there  is  little  to  regret !  "  The  aft'ec- 
tions,"  says  Sterne,  "  when  they  are  busy  that  way, 
will  build  their  structures,  were  it  but  on  the  paring 
of  a  nail ; "  and  there  is  no  practice  of  long  ob- 
servance and  ancient  veneration  —  whether  among 
nations  or  individuals  —  round  which  the  affections 
have  not  in  some  degree  twined  themselves,  and 
which  are  not  therefore  useful  as  supports  and  re- 
membrancers to  those  affections.  There  are  few  of 
the  consequences  springing  from  civil  war  more 
lamentable  than  the  disturbance  which  it  gives  to 
the  social  arrangements,  were  it  but  to  the  meanest 
of  them.  It  is  impossible  that  customs  long  iden- 
tified with  the  feelings  should  perish  without  those 
feelings  (though  from  their  own  eternal  principle 
they  will  ultimately  revive  and  find  new  modes  of 
action)  suffering  some  temporary  injury.  It  was  a 
beautiful  assertion  of  Dr.  Johnson  that  his  feelings 
would  be  outraged  by  seeing  an  old  post  rooted  up 
from  before  his  door  which  he  had  been  used  to 
look  at  all  his  life,  —  even  though  it  might  be  an 
incumbrance  there.  How  much  more  would  he 
have  grieved  over  the  removal  of  a  village  May- 
pole, with  all  its  merry  memories  and  all  its  ancient 
reverence  ! 

The  Christmas  festival  has  languished  from  those 
days  to  this,  but  never  has  been,  and  never  will  be 


THE    CHRISTMAS   SEASON.  I33 

extinct.  The  stately  forms  of  its  celebration  in 
high  places  have  long  since  (and,  in  all  probability, 
forever)  passed  away.  The  sole  and  homely  rep- 
resentative of  the  gorgeous  Christmas  prince  is  the 
mock-monarch  of  the  Epiphany,  —  the  laureate  of 
our  times,  with  his  nominal  duties,  in  the  last  faint 
shadow  of  the  court  bards  and  masque-makers  of 
yore  ;  and  the  few  lingering  remains  of  the  impor- 
tant duties  once  confided  to  the  master  of  the  royal 
revels  are  silently  and  unostentatiously  performed 
in  the  office  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain  of  to-day. 
But  the  spirit  of  the  season  yet  survives,  and,  for 
reasons  which  we  shall  proceed  to  point  out,  nmst 
survive.  True',  the  uproarious  merriment,  the 
loud  voice  which  it  sent  of  old  throughout  the 
land,  have  ceased ;  and  while  the  ancient  sports 
and  ceremonies  are  widely  scattered,  many  of  them 
have  retreated  into  obscure  places,  and  some  per- 
haps are  lost.  Still,  however,  this  period  of  com- 
memoration is  everywhere  a  merry  time  ;  and  we 
believe,  as  we  have  already  said,  that  most  of  the 
children  of  Father  Christmas  are  yet  wandering  up 
and  down  in  one  place  or  another  of  the  land.  We 
call  upon  all  those  of  our  readers  who  know  any- 
thing of  the  "  old,  old,  very  old,  gray-bearded  gen- 
tleman "  or  his  family  to  aid  us  in  our  search  after 
them ;  and  with  their  good  help  we  will  endeavor 
to  restore  them  to  some  portion  of  their  ancient 
honors  in  England. 


FEELINGS  OF  THE  SEASON. 


Of  all  the  festivals  which  crowd  the  Christian  cal- 
endar there  is  none  that  exercises  an  influence 
so  strong  and  universal  as  that  of  Christmas ;  and 
those  varied  superstitions,  and  quaint  customs,  and 
joyous  observances,  which  once  abounded  through- 
out the  rural  districts  of  England,  are  at  no  period 
of  the  year  so  thickly  congregated  or  so  strongly 
marked  as  at  this  season  of  unrestrained  festivity 
and  extended  celebration.  The  reasons  for  this  are 
various  and  very  obvious.  In  the  case  of  a  single 
celebration,  which  has  to  support  itself  by  its  own 
solitary  influence  long,  perchance,  after  the  feeling 
in  which  it  originated  has  ceased  to  operate,  whose 
significance  is  perhaps  dimly  and  more  dimly  per- 
ceived (through  the  obscurity  of  a  distance,  year 
after  year  receding  further  into  shadow)  by  its 
own  unaided  and  unreflected  light,  the  chances  are 
many  that  the  annually  increasing  neglect  into  which 
its  observance  is  likely  to  fall,  shall  finally  consign  it 
to  an  entire  obliteration.  But  a  cluster  of  festivals, 
standing  in  a  proximate  order  of  succession,  at  once 
throwing  light  upon  each  other  and  illustrated  by 


Family  Congratulation,  —  Page  134. 


FEELINGS    OF   THE    SEASON.  1 35 

a  varied  and  numerous  host  of  customs,  tradi- 
tions, and  ceremonies,  —  of  which,  as  in  a  similar 
cluster  of  stars,  the  occasional  obscuration  of  any 
one  or  more  would  not  prevent  their  memory  being 
suggested  and  their  place  distinctly  indicated  by 
the  others,  —  present  greatly  multiplied  probabilities 
against  their  existence  being  ever  entirely  forgotten 
or  their  observation  wholly  discontinued.  The  ar- 
rangement by  which  a  series  of  celebrations  — 
beautiful  in  .themselves,  and  connected  with  the 
paramount  event  in  which  are  laid  the  foundations 
of  our  religion  —  are  made  to  fall  at  a  period  other- 
wise of  very  solemn  import  (from  its  being  assum.ed 
as  the  close  of  the  larger  of  those  revolutions  of 
time  into  which  man  measures  out  the  span  of  his 
transitory  existence),  and  the  chance  which  has 
brought  down  to  the  same  point  and  thrown  to- 
gether the  traces  of  customs  and  superstitions  both 
of  a  sacred  and  secular  character,  uniting  with 
the  crowd  of  Catholic  observances,  off-shoots  from 
the  ancient  Saturnalia,  remains  of  old  Druidical 
rites,  and  glimpses  into  the  mythology  of  the  North- 
ern nations,  have  written  a  series  of  hieroglyphics 
upon  that  place  of  the  calendar,  which,  if  they  can- 
not be  deciphered  in  every  part,  are  still,  from  their 
number  and  juxtaposition,  never  likely  to  be  over- 
looked. 

But  though  these  causes  are  offered  as  account- 
ing for  the  preservation  of  many  customs  which, 
without  them,  would  long  since  have  passed  into 


136  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

oblivion,  which  exist  by  virtue  of  the  position  they 
occupy  on  the  calendar,  yet  the  more  conspicu- 
ous celebrations  of  this  season  need  no  such  aid 
and  no  such  arguments.  Nothing  can  be  added 
to  their  intrinsic  interest,  and  they  are  too  closely 
connected  with  the  solemn  warnings  of  man's  tem- 
poral destiny,  and  linked  with  the  story  of  his 
eternal  hopes,  ever  to  lose  any  portion  of  that  in- 
fluence, a  share  of  which  (without  thereby  losing, 
as  light  is  communicated  without  diminution)  they 
throw  over  all  the  other  celebrations  that  take 
shelter  under  their  wing. 

In  every  way,  and  by  many  a  tributary  stream, 
are  the  holy  and  beneficent  sentiments  which  be- 
long to  the  period  increased  and  refreshed.  Beau- 
tiful feelings,  too  apt  to  fade  within  the  heart  of 
man  amid  the  chilling  influences  of  worldly  pursuit, 
steal  out  beneath  the  sweet  religious  warmth  of  the 
season,  and  the  pure  and  holy  amongst  the  hopes 
of  earth  assemble,  to  place  themselves  under  the 
protection  of  that  eternal  hope  whose  promise  is 
now,  as  it  were,  yearly  renewed.  Amid  the  echoes 
of  that  song  which  proclaimed  peace  on  earth  and 
good-will  towards  men,  making  no  exclusions,  and 
dividing  them  into  no  classes,  rises  up  a  dormant 
sense  of  universal  brotherhood  in  the  heart ;  and 
something  like  a  distribution  of  the  good  things  of 
the  earth  is  suggested  in  favor  of  those,  destitute 
here,  who  are  proclaimed  as  joint  participators  in 
the  treasure  thus  announced  from  heaven.     At  no 


FEELINGS   OF   THE   SEASON.  137 

other  period  of  the  year  are  the  feeling  of  a  uni- 
versal benevolence  and  the  sense  of  a  common 
Adam  so  widely  awakened ;  at  no  season  is  the 
predominant  spirit  of  selfishness  so  effectually  re- 
buked ;  never  are  the  circles  of  love  so  largely 
widened. 

The  very  presence  of  a  lengthened  festivity  —  for 
festivity  can  never  be  solitary  —  would,  apart  from 
its  sacred  causes,  promote  these  wholesome  effects. 
The  extended  space  of  time  over  which  this  festival 
is  spread,  the  protracted  holiday  which  it  creates, 
points  it  out  for  the  gathering  together  of  distant 
friends  whom  the  passing  nature  of  an  occasional 
and  single  celebration  would  fail  to  collect  from 
their  scattered  places  of  the  world.  By  this  wise 
and  beautiful  arrangement  the  spell  of  home  is  still 
made  to  cast  its  sweet  and  holy  influence  along  the 
sterile  regions  as  along  the  bright  places  of  after- 
life, and  from  the  dark  valleys  and  the  sunny  hill- 
tops of  the  world  to  call  back  alike  the  spoiled  of 
fortune  and  the  tired  and  travel-stained  to  re- 
fresh themselves  again  and  again  at  the  fountain  of 
their  calmer  hopes  and  purer  feelings.  A  wise  and 
beautiful  arrangement  this  would  be,  in  whatever 
season  of  the  year  it  might  be  placed  !  Wise  and 
beautiful  is  any  institution  which  sets  up  a  rallying- 
place  for  the  early  affections  and  re-awakens  the 
sacred  sympathies  of  youth,  —  which,  from  that  well- 
head of  purity  and  peace,  sends  forth,  as  it  were,  a 
little  river  of  living  waters,  to  flow  with  revivifying 


138  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

freshness  and  soothing  murmur  along  the  wastes 
and  wildernesses  of  after  years  ;  which  makes  of 
that  spring-time  of  the  heart  a  reservoir  of  balm,  to 
which  in  hours  of  sorrow  it  can  return  for  joy,  and 
in  years  of  guilt  for  regeneration ;  and  which,  like 
the  widow's  cruse  of  oil,  wasteth  not  in  all  the  ages 
of  the  mind's  dearth.  But  how  greatly  are  the 
wisdom  and  the  beauty  of  this  arrangement  in- 
creased by  the  sacred  season  at  which  it  has  been 
placed  !  Under  the  sanctions  of  religion  the  cove- 
nants of  the  heart  are  renewed.  Upon  the  altars 
of  our  faith  the  lamps  of  the  spirit  are  rekindled. 
The  loves  of  earth  seem  to  have  met  together  at 
the  sound  of  the  "glad  tidings  "  of  the  season,  to 
refresh  themselves  for  the  heaven  which  those  tid- 
ings proclaim.  From  "  Abana  and  Pharpar  "  and 
all  the  "  rivers  of  Damascus  "  the  affections  are 
returned  to  bathe  in  "  the  waters  of  Israel."  In 
many  a  peaceful  spot  and  lowly  home, 

"  Wi'  joy  unfeigned,  brothers  and  sisters  meet, 
An'  each  for  other's  welfare  kindly  spiers ;  " 

and  as  the  long-separated  look  once  more  into  the 
"  sweet,  familiar  faces,"  and  listen  in  that  restored 
companionship  to  strains  such  as  "  once  did  sweet 
in  Zion  glide  "  (even  as  they  listened  long  ago,  and, 
it  may  be,  with  some  who  are  gone  from  them  for 
ever),  — 

"  Hope  springs,  '  exulting  on  triumphant  wing  ' 
That  thus  they  all  shall  meet  in  future  days, 


FEELINGS   OF   THE   SEASON.  1 39 

There  ever  bask  in  uncreated  rays, 
No  more  to  sigh  or  shed  the  bitter  tear, 
Together  hymning  their  Creator's  praise 
In  such  society,  yet  still  more  dear, 
While  ceaseless  time  moves  round  in  an  eternal  sphere." 


To  this  tone  of  feeling  the  services  of  the  Church 
have  for  some  time  previously  been  gradually  adapt- 
ing the  mind.  During  the  whole  period  of  Ad- 
vent a  course  of  moral  and  religious  preparation 
has  been  going  on,  and  a  state  of  expectation  is 
by  degrees  excited,  not  unlike  that  with  which  the 
Jews  were  waiting  for  the  Messiah,  of  old.  There 
is,  as  it  were,  a  sort  of  watching  for  the  great  event, 
a  questioning  where  Christ  shall  be  born,  and  an 
earnest  looking  out  for  his  star  in  the  East  that  we 
may  "  come  to  worship  him."  The  feeling  awak- 
ened by  the  whole  series  of  these  services — unlike 
that  suggested  by  some  of  those  which  commemo- 
rate other  portions  of  the  same  sacred  story  —  is 
entirely  a  joyous  one.  The  lowly  manner  of  the 
Saviour's  coming,  the  exceeding  humiliation  of  his 
appointments,  the  dangers  which  beset  his  infancy, 
and  his  instant  rejection  by  those  to  whom  he  came, 
are  all  forgotten  in  the  fact  of  his  coming  itself,  in 
the  feeling  of  a  mighty  triumph  and  the  sense  of  a 
great  deliverance,  or  only  so  far  remembered  as  to 
temper  the  triumph  and  give  a  character  of  tender- 
ness to  the  joy.  "The  services  of  the  Church 
about  this  season,"  says  Washington  Irving,  "  are 
extremely  tender  and  inspiring.     They  dwell  on  the 


140  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

beautiful  story  of  the  origin  of  our  faith,  and  the 
pastoral  scenes  that  accompanied  its  annoinice- 
ment.  They  gradually  increase  -in  fervor  and 
pathos  during  the  season  of  Advent,  until  they 
break  forth  in  full  jubilee  on  the  morning  that 
brought  'peace  and  good-will  to  men.'"  "  I  do  not 
know,"  he  adds,  "  a  grander  effect  of  music  on  the 
moral  feelings  than  to  hear  the  full  choir  and  the 
pealing  organ  performing  a  Christmas  anthem  in  a 
cathedral,  and  filling  every  part  of  the  vast  pile 
with  triumphant  harmony."  We  confess  that,  for 
ourselves,  very  sensible  as  we  are  to  the  grander 
and  more  complicated  effects  of  harmony,  we  have, 
on  the  occasion  in  question,  been  more  touched  by 
the  simple  song  of  rejoicing  as  it  rang  in  its  un- 
aided sweetness  through  the  aisles  of  some  village 
church.  We  have  felt  ourselves  more  emphatically 
reminded,  amid  pastoral  scenes  and  primitive  choirs, 
of  the  music  of  congratulation  which  was  uttered 
through  the  clear  air  to  men  "  abiding  in  the  field, 
keeping  watch  over  their  flocks  by  night,"  — 

"  The  hallowed  anthem  sent  to  hail 
Bethlehem's  shepherds  in  the  lonely  vale 
When  Jordan  hushed  his  waves,  and  midnight  still 
Watched  on  the  holy  towers  of  Zion's  hill." 

Nor  is  the  religious  feeling  which  belongs  to  this 
season  suffered  to  subside  with  the  great  event 
of  the  nativity  itself.  The  incidents  of  striking 
interest  which  immediately  followed  the  birth  of 
the  Messiah,  the  persecutions  which  were  directed 


FEELINGS    OF   THE   SEASON.  14I 

against  his  life,  and  the  starry  writing  of  God  in  the 
sky,  which,  amid  the  rejection  of  "  his  own,"  drew 
to  him  witnesses  from  afar,  all  contribute  to  keep 
alive  the  sense  of  a  sacred  celebration  to  the  end 
of  the  period  usually  devoted  to  social  festivity, 
and  send  a  wholesome  current  of  religious  feeling 
through  the  entire  season,  to  temper  its  extrava- 
gancies and  regulate  its  mirth.  The  worship  of 
the  shepherds ;  the  lamentation  in  Rama,  and  the 
weeping  of  Rachel  for  the  murder  of  the  inno- 
cents; the  miraculous  escape  from  that  massacre 
of  the  Saviour,  and  the  flight  of  his  parents  into 
Egypt  with  the  rescued  child  ;  and  the  manifesta- 
tion of  Christ  to  the  Gentiles,  which  is  indeed  the 
day  of  his  nativity  to  t(s,  —  are  all  commemorated 
in  the  Christian  Church,  and  illustrated  by  the  series 
of  services  distributed  through  that  period  of  re- 
ligious worship  which  bears  the  general  title  of 
Christmas. 

There  is,  too,  in  the  lengthened  duration  of  this 
festival  a  direct  cause  of  that  joyous  and  holiday 
spirit  which,  for  the  most  part  (after  the  first  tender- 
ness of  meeting  has  passed  away,  and  a  few  tears 
perhaps  been  given,  as  the  muster-roll  is  perused,  to 
those  who  answer  to  their  names  no  more),  per- 
vades all  whom  that  same  duration  has  tempted 
to  assemble. 

Regrets  there  will  no  doubt,  in  most  cases, 
be,  for  these  distant  and  periodical  gatherings  to- 
gether of  families  but   show  more  prominently  the 


142  THE    BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

blanks  which  the  long  intervals  have  created ; 
this  putting  on  anew,  as  it  were,  of  the  garment  of 
love  but  exposes  the  rents  which  time  has  made 
since  it  was  last  worn ;  this  renewing  of  the  chain 
of  our  attachments  but  displays  the  links  that  are 
broken  !  The  Sybil  has  come  round  again,  as 
year  by  year  she  comes,  with  her  books  of  the 
affections ;  but  new  leaves  have  been  torn  away. 
"  No  man,"  says  Shakspeare,  "  ever  bathed  twice 
in  the  same  river ; "  and  the  home-Jordan  to 
which  the  observers  of  the  Christmas  festival  come 
yearly  back  to  wash  away  the  leprous  spots  con- 
tracted in  the  world  never  presents  to  them  again 
the  identical  waters  in  which  last  they  sported, 
though  it  be  Jordan  still.  Amid  these  jubilant  har- 
monies of  the  heart  there  will  be  parts  unfilled 
up,  voices  wanting.  "This  young  gentlewoman," 
says  the  Countess  of  Rousillon  to  Lafeu,  "had  a 
father  (oh  that  had!  how  sad  a  passage  'tis!)." 
And  surely  with  such  changes  as  are  implied  in 
that  past  tense  some  of  the  notes  of  life's  early 
music  are  silenced  forever.  "  Would  they  were 
with  us  still !  "  says  the  old  ballad  ;  and  in  the  first 
hour  of  these  reunions  many  and  many  a  time  is 
the  wish  echoed  in  something  like  the  words  ! 
And  if  these  celebrations  have  been  too  long  dis- 
used, and  the  wanderer  comes  rarely  back  to  the 
birthplace  of  the  affections,  the  feeling  of  sadness 
may  be  too  strong  for  the  joyous  influences  of  the 
season, — 


FEELINGS    OF   THE   SEASON.  1 43 

"  A  change  "  he  vtayjiitd  "  there,  and  many  a  change  I 
Faces  and  footsteps  and  all  things  strange ! 
Gone  are  the  heads  of  the  silvery  hair, 
And  the  young  that  were,  have  a  brow  of  care, 
And  the  place  is  hushed  where  the  children  played  1" 

till,  amid  the  bitter  contrasts  of  the  past  with  the 
present,  and  thoughts  of  "'the  loved,  the  lost,  the 
distant,  and  the  dead,"  something  like 

"A  pall. 
And  a  gloom  o'ershadowing  the  banquet-hall, 
And  a  mark  on  the  floor  as  of  life-drops  spilt," 

may  spoil  his  ear  for  the  voice  of  mirth,  and  darken 
all  the  revels  of  the  merry  Christmas-tide. 

To  few  assemblages  of  men  is  it  given  to  come 
together  in  the  scene  of  ancient  memories  without 
having  to  "  remember  such  things  were  that  were 
most  precious."  But  excepting  in  those  cases  in 
which  the  suffering  is  extreme  or  the  sorrow  im- 
mediate, after  a  few  hours  given  to  a  wholesome 
and  perhaps  mournful  retrospect,  the  mind  re- 
adjusts itself  to  the  tone  of  the  time,  and  men  for 
the  most  part  seem  to  understand  that  they  are 
met  for  the  purpose  of  being  as  merry  as  it  is  in 
their  natures  to  be.  And  to  the  attainment  of  this 
right  joyous  frame  of  mind  we  have  already  said 
that  a  sense  of  the  duration  of  the  festival  period 
greatly  contributes.  In  the  case  of  a  single  holi- 
day the  mind  has  scarcely  time  to  take  the  ap- 
propriate tone  before  the  period  of  celebration  has 


144  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

passed  away ;  and  a  sense  of  its  transiloriness  tends 
often  to  prevent  the  effort  being  made  with  that 
heartiness  which  helps  to  insure  success. 

But  when  the  holiday  of  to-day  terminates  only 
that  it  may  make  way  for  the  holiday  of  to-morrow, 
and  gladness  has  an  ancient  charter  in  virtue  of 
which  it  claims  dominion  over  a  series  of  days  so 
extended  that  the  happy  school-boy  (and  some 
who  are  quite  as  happy  as  school-boys,  and  as 
merry  too)  cannot  see  the  end  of  them  for  the 
blaze  of  joyous  things  that  lies  between,  —  then 
does  the  heart  surrender  itself  confidently  to  the 
genius  of  the  time,  and  lets  loose  a  host  of  cheer- 
ful and  kindly  feelings,  which  it  knows  will  not  be 
suddenly  thrown  back  upon  it,  and  heaps  up 
pleasant  devices  upon  the  glowing  flame  of  mirth, 
as  we  heap  up  logs  on  the  roaring  fire,  laying 
them  decently  aside  at  the  end  of  the  season,  as 
we  lay  aside  the  burned-out  brand  of  the  Yule  log 
to  re-kindle  the  Christmas  fire  and  the  Christmas 
feeling  of  another  year. 

But  there  is  yet  another  reason,  in  aid  of  those 
which  we  have  enumerated,  accounting  for  an  ob- 
servance of  the  Christmas  festivities  more  universal, 
and  a  preservation  of  its  traditions  more  accurate 
and  entire,  than  are  bestowed  in  England  upon  the 
festival  customs  of  any  other  period  of  the  year. 
This  reason,  which  might  not  at  first  view  seem  so 
favorable  to  that  end  as  in  truth  it  is,  is  to  be 
found   in  the  outward  and  natural  aspects  of  the 


FEELINGS  OF  THE  SEASON.         145 

season.  We  have  been  watching  the  year  through 
the  period  of  its  decline,  are  arrived  at  the  dreary 
season  of  its  old  age,  and  stand  near  the  edge  of 
its  grave.  We  have  seen  the  rich  sunshines  and 
sweet  but  mournful  twilights  of  autumn,  with  their 
solemn  inspirations,  give  place  to  the  short  days 
and  gloomy  evenings  which  usher  in  the  coming 
solstice.  One  by  one  the  fair  faces  of  the  flowers 
have  departed  from  us,  and  the  sweet  murmuring 
of  "  shallow  rivers,  by  whose  falls  melodious  birds 
sing  madrigals,"  has  been  exchanged  for  the  harsh 
voice  of  the  swollen  torrent  and  the  dreary  music 
of  winds  that  "rave  through-  the  naked  tree." 
Through  many  a  chilling  sign  of  "weary  winter 
comin'  fast,"  we  have  reached  the 
"  Last  of  the  months,  severest  of  them  all. 

For  lo  !  the  fiery  horses  of  the  Sun 

Through  the  twelve  signs  their  rapid  course  have  runj 

Time,  like  a  serpent,  bites  his  forked  tail, 

And  Winter,  on  a  goat,  bestrides  the  gale ; 

Rough  blows  the  North-wind  near  ArcUirus'  star, 

And  sweeps,  unreined,  across  the  polar  bar." 

The  halcyon  days,  which  sometimes  extend  their 
southern  influence  even  to  our  stem  climate,  and 
carry  an  interval  of  gloomy  calm  into  the  heart  of 
this  dreary  month,  have  generally  ere  its  close 
given  place  to  the  nipping  frosts  and  chilling  blasts 
of  mid-winter.  "Out  of  the  South"  hath  come 
"the  whirlwind,  and  cold  out  of  the  North."  The 
days  have  dwindled  to  their  smallest  stature,  and 


146  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

the  long  nights,  with  their  atmosphere  of  mist,  shut 
in  and  circumscribe  the  wanderings  of  man.  Clouds 
and  shadows  surround  us.  The  air  has  lost  its  rich 
echoes,  and  the  earth  its  diversified  aspects ;  and 
to  the  immediate  threshold  of  the  house  of  feasting 
and  merriment  we  have  travelled  through  those 
dreary  days  which  are  emphatically  called  "  the 
dark  days  before  Christmas,"  Of  one  of  the  gloomy 
mornings  that  usher  in  these  melancholy  days 
Ben  Jonson  gives  the  following  dismal  descrip- 
tion ;  — 

"  It  is,  methinks,  a  morning  full  of  fate  I 
It  riseth  slowly,  as  her  sullen  car 
Had  all  the  weights  of  sleep  and  death  hung  at  it ! 
She  is  not  rosy-fingered,  but  swoln  black! 
Her  face  is  like  a  water  turned  to  blood. 
And  her  sick  head  is  bound  about  with  clouds, 
As  if  she  threatened  night,  ere  noon  of  day ! 
It  does  not  look  as  it  would  have  a  hail 
Or  health  wished  in  it  —  as  of  other  morns  !  " 

And  the  general  discomforts  of  the  season  are  be- 
moaned by  old  Sackville,  with  words  that  have  a 
wintry  sound,  in  the  following  passage,  which  we 
extract  from  "  England's  Parnassus  :  "  — 

"  The  wrathfull  winter,  proching  on  a  pace, 
With  blustring  blast  had  all  ybard  the  treene  ; 
And  old  Saturnus,  with  his  frosty  face. 
With  chilling  cold  had  pearst  the  tender  greene  ; 
The  mantle  rent  wherein  inwrapped  beene 
The  gladsome  groves  that  now  lay  over-throwne, 
The  tapers  torne,  and  every  tree  downe  blowne ; 


FEELINGS   OF   THE   SEASON.  147 

The  soyle,  that  erst  so  seemely  was  to  seeme, 

Was  all  dispoiled  of  her  beauties  hewe, 

And  stole  fresh  flowers  (wherewith  the  Somer's  queene 

Had  clad  the  earth),  now  Boreas  blast  downe  blew  ; 

And  small  fowles  flocking,  in  their  songs  did  rew 

The  Winter's  wrath,  where  with  each  thing  defast, 

In  wofuU  wise  bewayl'd  the  Sommer  past : 

Hawthorne  had  lost  his  motley  liverie, 

The  naked  twigs  were  shivering  all  for  cold, 

And,  dropping  down  the  teares  aboundantlie, 

Each  thing,  methought,  with  weeping  eye  me  told 

The  cruell  season,  bidding  me  withhold 

Myselfe  within." 

The  feelings  excited  by  this  dreary  period  of 
transition,  and  by  the  desolate  aspect  of  external 
things  to  which  it  has  at  length  brought  us, 
would  seem,  at  first  view,  to  be  little  in  harmony 
with  a  season  of  festival,  and  peculiarly  unpropitious 
to  the  claims  of  merriment.  And  yet  it  is  precisely 
this  joyless  condition  of  the  natural  world  which 
drives  us  to  take  refuge  in  our  moral  resources, 
at  the  same  time  that  it  furnishes  us  with  the  leisure 
necessary  for  their  successful  development.  The 
spirit  of  cheerfulness  which,  for  the  blessing  of  man, 
is  implanted  in  his  nature,  deprived  of  the  many 
issues  by  which,  at  other  seasons,  it  walks  abroad 
and  breathes  amid  the  sights  and  sounds  of  Nature, 
is  driven  to  its  own  devices  for  modes  of  mani- 
festation, and  takes  up  its  station  by  the  blazing 
hearth.  In  rural  districts,  the  varied  occupations 
which  call  the  sons  of  labor  abroad  into  the  fields 
are  suspended  by  the  austerities  of  the  time  j  and 


148  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

to  the  cottage  of  the  poor  man  has  come  a  season 
of  temporal  repose,  concurrently  with  the  falling  of 
that  period  which  seals  anew  for  him,  as  it  were, 
the  promises  of  an  eternal  rest.  At  no  other  por- 
tion of  the  year,  could  a  feast  of  equal  duration  find 
so  many  classes  of  men  at  leisure  for  its  reception. 

"  With  his  ice,  and  snow,  and  rime, 
Let  bleak  winter  sternly  come  ! 
There  is  not  a  sunnier  clime 
Than  the  love-lit  winter  home." 

Amid  the  comforts  of  the  fireside,  and  all  its  sweet 
companionships  and  cheerful  inspirations,  there  is 
something  like  the  sense  of  a  triumph  obtained  over 
the  hostilities  of  the  season.  Nature,  which  at  other 
times  promotes  the  expansion  of  the  feelings  and 
contributes  to  the  enjoyments  of  man,  seems  here 
to  have  promulgated  her  fiat  against  their  indul- 
gence ;  and  there  is  a  kind  of  consciousness  of  an 
inner  world  created,  in  evasion  of  her  law,  —  a  tract 
won  by  the  genius  of  the  affections  from  the  domain 
of  desolation,  spots  of  sunshine  planted  by  the 
heart  in  the  very  bosom  of  shadow,  a  pillar  of  fire 
lit  up  in  the  darkness.  And  thus  the  sensation  of 
a  respite  from  toil,  the  charms  of  renewed  com- 
panionship, the  consciousness  of  a  general  sym- 
pathy of  enjoyment  running  along  all  the  links  of 
the-  social  chain,  and  the  contrasts  established 
within  to  the  discomforts  without,  are  all  compo- 
nents of  that  propitious  feeling  to  which  the  religious 


FEELINGS    OF    THE    SEASON.  149 

spirit  of  the  season,  and  all  its  quaint  and  charac- 
teristic observances,  make  their  appeal. 

There  is,  too  (connected  with  these  latter  feelings, 
and  almost  unacknowledged  by  the  heart  of  man), 
another  moral  element  of  that  cheerful  sentiment 
which  has  sprung  up  within  it.  It  consists  in  the 
prospect,  even  at  this  distant  and  gloomy  period,  of 
a  coming  spring.  This  is  peculiarly  the  season  of 
looking  forward.  Already,  as  it  were,  the  infant 
face  of  the  new  year  is  perceived  beneath  the  folds 
of  the  old  one's  garment.  The  business  of  the 
present  year  has  terminated,  and  along  the  night 
which  has  succeeded  to  its  season  of  labor  have 
been  set  up  a  series  of  illuminations,  which,  we 
know,  will  be  extinguished  only  that  the  business 
of  another  seed-time  may  begin. 

Neither,  amid  all  its  dreary  features,  is  the  nat- 
ural season  without  its  own  picturesque  beauty, 
nor  even  entirely  divested  of  all  its  summer  indi- 
cations of  a  living  loveliness,  or  all  suggestions  of 
an  eternal  hope.  Not  only  hath  it  the  peculiar 
beauties  of  old  age,  but  it  hath  besides  lingering 
traces  of  that  beauty  which  old  age  hath  not  been 
able  wholly  to  extinguish,  and  which  come  finely 
in  aid  of  the  moral  hints  and  religious  hopes  of 
the  season. 

The  former  —  the  graces  which  are  peculiar  to 
the  season  itself  —  exist  in  many  a  natural  aspect 
and  grotesque  effect,  which  is  striking  both  for  the 
variety  it  offers  and  for  its  own  intrinsic  loveliness. 


150  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

"  We  may  find  it  in  the  wintry  boughs,  as  they  cross  the 

cold  blue  sky, 
While  soft  on  icy  pool  and  stream  the  pencilled  shadows 

lie, 
When  we  look  upon  their  tracery,  by  the  fairy  frost-work 

bound, 
Whence    the   flitting    red-breast    shakes   a    shower    of 

blossoms  to  the  ground." 

The  white  mantle  which  the  earth  occasionally  puts 
on  with  the  rapidity  of  a  spell,  covering,  in  the 
course  of  a  night  and  while  we  have  slept,  the 
familiar  forms  with  a  sort  of  strangeness  that  makes 
us  feel  as  if  we  had  awakened  in  some  new  and  en- 
chanted land ;  the  fantastic  forms  assumed  by  the 
drifting  snow  ;  the  wild  and  fanciful  sketching  of  old 
winter  upon  the  "  frosty  pane ; "  the  icicles  that 
depend  like  stalactites  from  every  projection,  and 
sparkle  in  the  sun  like  jewels  of  the  most  brilliant 
water  ;  and,  above  all,  the  feathery  investiture  of  the 
trees  above  alluded  to,  by  which  their  minute  tracery 
is  brought  out  with  a  richness  shaming  the  carving 
of  the  finest  chisel,  —  are  amongst  the  features  which 
exhibit  the  inexhaustible  fertility  of  Nature  in  the 
production  of  striking  and  beautiful  effects.  Hear 
how  one  of  our  best  poetesses,  Mary  Howitt,  sings 
of  these  graces  :  — 

"  One  silent  night  hath  passed,  and  lo, 
How  beautiful  the  earth  is  now  ! 
All  aspect  of  decay  is  gone, 
The  hills  have  put  their  vesture  on. 
And  clothed  is  the  forest  bough. 


FEELINGS   OF   THE   SEASON.  151 

'  Say  not  't  is  an  unlovely  time  ! 
Turn  to  the  wide,  white  waste  thy  view  ; 
Turn  to  the  silent  hills  that  rise 
In  their  cold  beauty  to  the  skies, 
And  to  those  skies  intenselv  blue. 


"Walk  now  among  the  forest  trees  : 
Saidst  thou  that  they  were  stripped  and  bare  .' 
Each  heavy  bough  is  bending  down 
With  snowy  leaves  and  flowers,  — the  crown 
Which  Winter  regally  doth  wear. 

"  'T  is  well  ;  thy  summer  garden  ne'er 
Was  lovelier,  with  its  birds  and  flowers. 
Than  is  this  silent  place  of  snow, 
With  feathery  branches  drooping  low, 
Wreathing  around  thee  shadowy  bowers  !  " 

While  on  the  subject  of  the  natural  beauties  of 
this  season,  we  must  introduce  our  readers  to  some 
admirable  verses  which  have  been  furnished  to  us 
by  our  friend  Mr.  Stoddart,  the  author  of  that  fine 
poem  the  "Death-Wake,"  and  in  which  its  peculiar 
aspects  are  described  with  a  very  graphic  pen  : 

A   WINTER    LANDSCAPE. 

The  dew-lark  sitteth  on  the  ice,  beside  the  reedless  rill ; 
The  leaf  of  the  hawthorn  flutters  on  the  solitary  hill ; 
The  wild  lake  weareth  on  its  heart  a  cold  and  changed 

look, 
And  meets,  at  the  lip  of  its  moon-lit  marge,  the  spiritual 

brook. 

Idly  basks  the  silver  swan,  near  to  the  isle  of  trees, 
And  to  its  proud  breast  come  and  kiss  the  billow  and  the 
breeze ; 


152  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

They  wash  the  eider  as  they  play  about  the  bird  of  grace, 
And  boom,  in  the  same  slow  mood,  away,  to  the  moveless 
mountain-base. 

The  chieftain-deer,  amid  the  pines,  his  antlered  forehead 

shows, 
And  scarcely  are  the  mosses  bent  where  that  stately  one 

arose ; 
His  step  is  as  the  pressure  of  a  light  beloved  hand, 
And  he  looketh  like  a  poet's  dream   in  some  enchanted 

land! 

A  voice  of  Winter,  on  the  last  wild  gust  of  Autumn  borne. 
Is  hurried  from  the  hills  afar,  like  the  windings  of  a  horn; 
And  solemnly  and  heavily  the  silver  birches  groan, 
And  the  old  ash  waves  his  wizard  hand  to  the  dim,  myste- 
rious tone. 

And  noiselessly,   across    the   heaven,  a   gray   and  vapory 

shred 
Is  wandering,  fed  by  phantom  clouds  that  one  by  one  are 

led 
Out  of  the  wide  North,  where  they  grow  within  the  aged  sea, 
And  in  their  coils  the  yellow  moon  is  laboring  lazily  ! 

She    throws    them   from    her    mystic    urn,   as    they   w^ere 

beckoned  back 
By  some  enchantress,  working  out    her  spells  upon  their 

track  ; 
Or  gathers  up  their  fleecy  folds,  and  shapes  them,  as  they 

go, 
To  hang  around  her  beautiful  form  a  tracery  of  snow. 

Lo,  Winter  Cometh !  —  and  his  hoar  is  heavy  on  the  hill, 

And  curiously  the  frostwork  forms  below  the  rimy  rill ; 

The  birth  of  morn  is  a  gift  of  pearl  to  the  heath  and  willow- 
tree, 

And  the  green  rush  hangs  o'er  its  water-bed,  shining  and 
silvery. 


FEELINGS   OF   THE   SEASON.  1 53 

From  the  calm  of  the  lake  a  vapor  steals  its  restless  wreath 

away, 
And  leaves  not  a  crisp  on  the  quiet  tarn  but  the  wake  of 

the  swan  at  play ; 
The  deer  holds  up  the  glistening  heath,  where  his  hoof  is 

lightly  heard, 
And  the  dew-lark  circleth  to  his  song,  —  sun-lost  and  lonely 

bird ! 

But  the  season  hath  other  striking  aspects  of  its 
own.     Pleasant,  says  Southey,  — 

"  To  the  sobered  soul, 
The  silence  of  the  wintry  scene. 
When  Nature  shrouds  her  in  her  trance. 

In  deep  tranquillity. 

"  Not  undelightful  now  to  roam 
The  wild  heath  sparkling  on  the  sight ; 
Not  undelightful  now  to  pace 

The  forest's  ample  rounds, 

"  And  see  the  spangled  branches  shine. 
And  snatch  the  moss  of  many  a  hue. 
That  varies  the  old  tree's  brown  bark, 

Or  o'er  the  gray-stone  spreads." 

Mr.  Soutliey  might  have  mentioned,  too,  —  as  be- 
longing to  the  same  class  of  effects  with  those  pro- 
duced by  the  mosses  "of  many  a  hue  "  that  "  vary 
the  old  tree's  brown  bark,"  —  those  members  of  the 
forest  which  retain  their  dead  and  many  tinted 
leaves  till  the  ensuing  spring,  hanging  occasional 
wreaths  of  strange  and  fantastic  beauty  in  the  white 


154  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

tresses  of  winter,  together  with  the  rich  contrast 
presented  by  the  red  twigs  of  the  dog-wood  amid 
the  dark  colors  of  the  surrounding  boughs.  The 
starry  lieavens,  too,  at  this  period  of  the  year,  pre- 
sent an  occasional  aspect  of  extraordinary  bril- 
liancy ;  and  the  long  winter  nights  are  illustrated 
by  a  pomp  of  illumination,  presenting  magnificent 
contrasts  to  the  cold  and  cheerless  earth,  and  offer- 
ing unutterable  revelations  at  once  to  the  physical 
and  mental  eye. 

Amongst  the  traces  of  d.  former  beauty  not  utterly 
extinguished,  and  the  suggestions  of  a  summer  feel- 
ing not  wholly  passed  away,  we  have  those  both  of 
sight  and  scent  and  sound.  The  lark,  "all  inde- 
pendent of  the  leafy  spring,"  as  Wordsworth  says, 
has  not  long  ceased  to  pour  his  anthem  through  the 
sky.  In  propitious  seasons,  such  as  we  have  en- 
joyed for  some  years  past,  he  is  almost  a  Christmas- 
carol  singer.  The  China-roses  are  with  us  still, 
and  under  proper  management  will  stay  with  us  till 
the  snowdrops  come.  So  will  the  anemones  and 
the  wallflowers ;  and  the  aconite  may  be  won  to 
come,  long  "  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take  the 
winds  of  yaniiary  with  beauty."  The  cold  air 
may  be  kept  fragrant  with  the  breath  of  the  scented 
coltsfoot,  and  the  lingering  perfume  of  the  migno- 
nette. Then  we  have  rosemary,  too,  "mocking  the 
winter  of  the  year  with  perfume,"  — 

"  Rosemary  and  rue,  which  keep 
Seeming  and  savor  all  the  winter  long." 


FEELINGS  OF  THE  SEASON.        155 

"  It  looks,"  says  Leigh  Hunt,  pleasantly,  "  as  if 
we  need  have  no  winter,  if  we  choose,  as  far  as 
flowers  are  concerned."  "There  is  a  story,"  he 
adds,  "  in  Boccaccio,  of  a  magician  who  con- 
jured up  a  garden  in  winter-time.  His  magic 
consisted  in  his  having  a  knowledge  beyond  his 
time ;  and  magic  pleasures,  so  to  speak,  await 
on  all  who  choose  to  exercise  knowledge  after  his 
fashion," 

But  what  we  would  allude  to  more  particularly 
here  are  the  evergreens,  which,  with  their  rich  and 
clustering  berries,  adorn  the  winter  season,  offer- 
ing a  provision  for  the  few  birds  that  still  remain, 
and  hanging  a  faint  memory  of  summer  about  the 
hedges  and  the  groves.  The  misletoe  with  its  white 
berries,  the  holly  (Virgil's  acanthus)  with  its  scarlet 
berries  and  pointed  leaves,  the  ivy  whose  berries  are 
green,  the  pyracanthus  with  its  berries  of  deep 
orange,  the  arbutus  exhibiting  its  flowers  and  fruit 
upon  adjacent  boughs,  the  glossy  laurel  and  the 
pink-eyed  laurestine  (not  to  speak  of  the  red  ber- 
ries of  the  May-bush,  the  purple  sloes  of  the  black- 
thorn, or  others  which  show  their  clusters  upon 
leafless  boughs,  nor  of  the  evergreen  trees,  —  the 
pine,  the  fur,  the  cedar,  or  the  cypress),  are  all 
so  many  pleasant  remembrancers  of  the  past,  and 
so  many  types  to  man  of  that  which  is  imperishable 
in  his  own  nature.  And  it  is  probably  both  because 
they  are  such  remembrancers  of  what  the  heart  so 
much  loves,  and  such  types  of  what  it  so  much  de- 


156  THE   BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

sires,  that  they  are  gathered  about  our  doors  and 
within  our  homes  at  this  period  of  natural  decay 
and  rehgious  regeneration,  and  mihgle  their  pic- 
turesque forms  and  hopeful  morals  with  all  the 
mysteries  and  ceremonies  of  the  season. 


1-^1    p  ■  ■.'■-> 


Country  Carol  Singers.  — Po^^  157. 


SIGNS  OF   THE  SEASON. 


We  have  said  that  the  coming  festivities  of  the  sea- 
son "  fling  their  shadows  '"'  long  before  :  the  avant- 
couriers  of  the  old  man  are  to  be  seen  advancing 
in  all  directions.  At  home  and  abroad,  in  town 
and  in  country,  in  the  remote  farmstead  and  on 
the  king's  highway,  we  are  met  by  the  symptoms 
of  his  approach,  and  the  arrangements  making  for 
his  reception. 

We  will  not  dwell  here  on  the  domestic  opera- 
tions which  are  so  familiar  to  all,  —  the  ample  pro- 
vision for  good  cheer,  which  has  long  been  making 
in  every  man's  home  who  can  at  any  time  afford 
to  make  good  cheer  at  all.  We  need  not  remind 
our  town  readers  of  the  increased  activity  visible 
in  all  the  interior  departments  of  each  establish- 
ment, and  the  apparent  extent  and  complication 
of  its  foreign  relations ;  the  councils  held  with  the 
housekeeper  and  cook;  the  despatches  to  the 
butcher,  baker,  poulterer,  and  confectioner,  which 
are  their  consequence ;  and  the  efficient  state  of 
preparation  which  is  arising  out  of  all  these  ener- 


158  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

getic  movements.  To  our  country  readers  we 
need  not  dwell  upon  the  slaughter  of  fowls  in  the 
poultry-yard,  and  game  in  the  field,-  or  the  whole- 
sale doings  within  doors  for  the  manufacture  of 
pastry  of  all  conceivable  kinds  and  in  all  its  con- 
ceivable forms.  And  to  neither  the  one  nor  the 
other  is  it  necessary  that  we  should  speak  of  the 
packages,  in  every  shape  and  size,  which  both  are 
getting  ready,  for  the  interchange  between  friends 
of  the  commodities  of  their  respective  positions. 
Here,  however,  the  town  has  clearly  the  advantage 
in  point  of  gain,  and  the  country  in  point  of  char- 
acter, —  the  former  having  little  besides  barrels  of 
oysters  and  baskets  of  Billingsgate  fish  to  furnish 
to  the  country  larders  in  return  for  the  entire  range 
of  the  products  of  the  dairy,  farmyard,  and  game- 
field. 

But  however  lightly  we  may  allude  to  the  other 
articles  which  enter  into  the  charge  of  the  commis- 
sariat department,  and  have  no  distinctive  character, 
at  this  particular  season,  beyond  their  unimaginable 
abundance,  we  are  by  no  means  at  liberty,  without 
a  more  special  notice,  to  pass  over  the  mystery  of 
Mince-pie  1  We  speak  not  here  of  the  merits  of 
that  marvellous  compound;  because  a  dish  which 
has  maintained  without  impeachment,  since  long 
before  the  days  of  honest  old  Tusser  (who  calls 
these  marvels  shred-pies),  the  same  supreme  char- 
acter which  it  holds  amongst  the  men  of  these 
latter  days,  may  very  well  dispense  with  our  com- 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON.  159 

mendation ;  and  every  school-boy  knows,  from  his 
own  repeated  experience,  the  utter  inadequacy  of 
language  to  convey  any  notion  of  the  ineffable  fla- 
vor of  this  unapproachable  viand.  The  poverty  of 
speech  is  never  so  conspicuous  as  when  even  its 
richest  forms  are  used  for  the  purpose  of  describing 
that  which  is  utterly  beyond  its  resources  ;  and  we 
have  witnessed  most  lamentable,  although  ludicrous, 
failures,  on  the  part  of  eloquent  but  imprudent  men, 
in  their  ambitious  attempts  to  give  expression  to 
their  sensations  under  the  immediate  influence  of 
this  unutterable  combination.  It  is  therefore  to 
other  properties  than  those  which  make  their  ap- 
peal to  the  palate  that  we  must  confine  ourselves 
in  our  mention  of  mince-pie. 

The  origin  of  this  famous  dish,  like  that  of  the 
heroic  in  all  kinds  and  classes,  is  involved  in  fable. 
By  some  it  has  been  supposed,  from  the  Oriental 
ingredients  which  enter  into  its  composition,  to 
have  a  reference  (as  probably  had  also  the  plum- 
porridge  of  those  days)  to  the  offerings  made  by 
the  wise  men  of  the  East ;  and  it  was  anciently  the 
custom  to  make  these  pies  of  an  oblong  form,  there- 
by representing  the  manger  in  which,  on  that  occa- 
sion, those  sages  found  the  infant  Jesus.  Against 
this  practice  —  which  was  of  the  same  character 
with  that  of  the  little  image  called  the  Yule  Dough, 
or  Yule  Cake,  formerly  presented  by  bakers  to  their 
customers  at  the  anniversary  of  the  Nativity  —  the 
Puritans  made  a  vehement  outcry,  as  idolatrous; 


l6o  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

and  certainly  it  appears  to  us  somewhat  more  objec- 
tionable than  many  of  those  which  they  denounced, 
in  the  same  category.  Of  course  it  was  supported 
by  the  Catholics  with  a  zeal  the  larger  part  of 
which  (as  in  most  cases  of  controversy  where  the 
passions  are  engaged)  was  derived  from  the  oppo- 
sition of  their  adversaries ;  and  the  latter  having 
pronounced  the  mince-pie  to  be  an  abomination, 
the  eating  thereof  was  immediately  established  as 
a  test  of  orthodoxy  by  the  former.  Sandys  men- 
tions that  even  when  distressed  for  a  comfortable 
meal  they  would  refuse  to  partake  of  this  very 
tempting  dish,  when  set  before  them,  and  mentions 
John  Bunyan  when  in  confinement  as  an  example. 
He  recommends  that  under  such  extreme  circum- 
stances they  should  be  eaten  with  a  protest,  as 
might  be  done  by  a  lawyer  in  a  similar  case. 

In  a  struggle  like  this,  however,  it  is  clear  that 
the  advocates  of  mince-pie  were  likely  to  have  the 
best  of  it,  through  the  powerful  auxiliary  derived  to 
their  cause  from  the  savoriness  of  the  dish  itself. 
The  legend  of  the  origin  of  eating  roast-pig,  which 
we  have  on  the  authority  of  Charles  Lamb,  exhibits 
the  rapid  spread  of  that  practice,  against  the  sense 
of  its  abomination,  on  the  strength  of  the  irresistible 
appeals  made  to  the  palate  by  the  crackling.  And 
accordingly,  in  the  case  of  mince-pie  we  find  that 
the  dehcious  compound  has  come  down  to  our 
days,  stripped  of  its  objectionable  forms  and  more 
mystic    meanings,  from  the    moment    when    they 


SIGNS    OF   THE    SEASON.  l6l 

ceased  to  be  topics  of  disputation,  and  is  freely 
partaken  of  by  the  most  rigid  Presbyterian,  who 
raises  "no  question"  thereon  "for  conscience' 
sake." 

It  may  be  observed,  however,  that  relics  of  the 
more  recondite  virtues  ascribed  to  this  dish  by  the 
Catholics,  in  the  days  of  its  sectarian  persecution, 
still  exist  in  the  superstitions  which  attach  certain 
privileges  and  promises  to  its  consumption.  In 
some  places  the  form  of  this  superstition,  we  be- 
lieve, is,  that  for  every  house  in  which  a  mince  pie 
shall  be  eaten  at  the  Christmas  season,  the  eater 
shall  enjoy  a  happy  month  in  the  coming  year.  As, 
however,  this  version  would  limit  the  consumption, 
as  far  as  oxiy  futufe  benefit  is  attached  to  it,  to  the 
insufficient  number  of  twelve,  we  greatly  prefer  an 
edition  of  the  same  belief  which  we  have  met  with 
elsewhere,  and  which  promises  a  happy  day  for 
every  individual  pie  eaten  during  the  same  period,- 
—  thereby  giving  a  man  a  direct  and  prospective  in- 
terest in  the  consumption  of  as  large  a  number  out 
of  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  as  may  happen  to 
agree  with  his  inclination. 

Leaving,  however,  those  proceedings  which  are 
going  on  within  our  homes,  and  of  which  the  man- 
ufacture of  mince-pies  forms  so  important  an 
article,  we  must  turn  to  the  symptoms  of  the  ap- 
proaching holiday  that  meet  the  eye  at  every  turn 
which  we  make  out  of  doors.  He  who  will  take 
the  king's  highway  in  his  search  after  these,  planting 


1 62  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

himself  on  the  outside  of  a  stage-coach,  will  have 
the  greater  number  of  such  signs  brought  under 
his  observation  in  the  progress  of  a  journey  which 
whirls  him  through  town  and  village,  and  by  park 
and  farmhouse. 

The  road  is  alive  with  travellers ;  and  along  its 
whole  extent  there  is  an  air  of  aimless  bustle,  if  we 
may  so  express  ourselves,  —  an  appearance  of  active 
idleness.  No  doubt  he  who  shall  travel  that  same 
road  in  the  days  of  hay-making  or  harvest  will  see 
as  dense  a  population  following  their  avocations  in 
the  open  air  and  swarming  in  the  fields.  But  then 
at  those  periods  of  labor  the  crowds  are  more 
widely  scattered  over  the  face  of  the  country,  and 
each  individual  is  earnestly  engaged  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  some  positive  pursuit,  amid  a  silence  scarcely 
broken  by  the  distant  whistle  or  occasional  song 
that  comes  faintly  to  the  ear  through  the  rich  sunny 
air.  People  are  busier  without  being  so  bustling. 
But  now  all  men  are  in  action,  though  all  men's 
business  seems  suspended.  The  population  are 
gathered  together  in  groups  at  the  corners  of 
streets  or  about  the  doors  of  ale-houses,  and  the 
mingling  voices  of  the  speakers  and  the  sound  of 
the  merry  laugh  come  sharp  and  ringing  through 
the  clear  frosty  air.  There  is  the  appearance,  every 
way,  of  a  season  of  transition.  The  only  conspicu- 
ous evidence  of  the  business  of  life  going  forward 
with  a  keen  and  steady  view  to  its  ordinary  objects, 
exists  in  the  abundant  displays  made  at  the  win- 


I 


yiiijiiiiii;: 5^f 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON.  163 

dovvs  of  every  shopkeeper,  in  every  village  along  the 
road.  Vehicles  of  all  kinds  are  in  motion ;  stage- 
coach, post-chaise,  and  private  carriage  are  ahke 
filled  with  travellers  passing  in  all  directions  to 
their  several  places  of  assembling,  and  give  glimp- 
ses of  faces  bright  with  the  re-awakened  affections 
that  are  radiating  on  all  sides  to  common  centres. 
Everywhere  hearts  are  stirred  and  pulses  quickened 
by  pleasant  anticij^ations ;  and  many  a  current  of 
feelings  which  for  the  rest  of  the  year  has  wandered 
only  in  the  direction  of  the  world's  miry  ways  and 
been  darkened  by  its  pollutions,  met  by  the  mem- 
ories of  the  season  and  turned  back  from  its  un- 
pleasing  course,  is  flowing  joyously  back  by  every 
highway  into  the  sweet  regions  of  its  pure  and 
untainted  spring. 

But  of  all  wayfarers  who  are  journeying  towards 
the  haunts  of  Christmas,  who  so  happy  as  the 
emancipated  school-boy?  And  of  all  vehicles  that 
are  carrying  contributions  of  mirth  to  that  general 
festival,  what  vehicle  is  so  richly  stored  therewith  as 
the  post-chaise  that  holds  a  group  of  these  young 
travellers?  The  glad  day  which  has  been  the  sub- 
ject of  speculation  so  long  before,  and  has  been 
preceded  by  days  which,  in  their  imaginary  calen- 
dar, are  beyond  any  question  the  very  longest  days 
of  all  the  year,  has  at  length  arrived,  after  seeming 
as  if  it  never  would  arrive,  and  the  long  restrained 
and  hourly  increasing  tide  of  expectation  has  at 
length  burst  its  barriers,  and  is  rushing  forward  with 


164  THE   BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

no  little  noise,  into  the  sea  of  fruition.  "  Eja ! 
quid  silemus  ?  "  says  the  well-known  breaking-up 
song  of  the  Winchester  boys  ;  and  -the  sentiment 
therein  expressed  is  wide  awake  (as  everything 
must  be,  on  this  morning,  that  lies  within  any  rea- 
sonable distance  of  their  voices)  in  the  breast  ol 
every  school-boy,  at  all  schools. 

"Appropinquat  ecce !  felix 
Hora  gaudiorum, 
Post  grave  tedium, 
Advenit  omnium 

Meta  petita  laborum. 

Domum,  domum,  dulce  domum  ! 
Domum,  domum,  dulce  domum  ! 
Dulce,  dulce,  dulce  domum  ! 
Dulce  domimi  resonemus. 

"  Musa  !  libros  mitte,  fessa  ; 
Mitte  pensa  dura, 
Mitte  negotium. 
Jam  datur  otium, 
Mea  mittito  cura ! 
Domum,  domum,  etc. 


"  Heus,  Rogere,  fer  caballos  : 
Eja  nunc  eamus, 
Limen  amabile, 
Matris  et  oscula, 

Suaviter  et  repetamus . 
Domum,  domum,  etc. 

"  Concinamus  ad  Penates, 
Vox  et  audiatur  : 
Phosphore  !  quid  jubar, 
Segnius  emicans, 

Gaudia  nostra  moratur. 
Domum,  domum,  etc." 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON.  1 65 

And  away  they  go  well  inclined  to  act  up  to  the 
injunctions  of  the  ancient  song.  "  Concinamus, 
O  Sodales !  "  Our  readers  will  do  well  on  the 
present  occasion  to  translate  the  verb  by  its  Eng- 
lish equivalent,  —  to  shout.  "  Vox  et  audiatur  .^"  — 
small  doubt  of  that !  That  deaf-looking  old  woman 
by  the  way-side  must  be  "  very  deaf  indeed  "  if  the 
sounds  of  that  merriment  have  failed  at  least  to 
reach  her  ears,  — though  they  may  get  no  further ; 
for  she  looks  hke  one  of  those  in  whom  all  the 
avenues  by  which  mirth  reaches  the  heai't,  where 
they  have  not  been  closed  at  their  external  outlets 
by  the  infirmities  of  age,  are  choked  up  within  by 
the  ruins  of  that  heart  itself.  But  the  entire  pro- 
gress of  these  glad  hearts  to-day  is  in  the  nature  of 
a  triumph,  and  all  objects  in  its  course  are  min- 
isters to  their  unreflecting  mirth.  Theirs  is  the 
blessed  age,  and  this  its  most  privileged  day,  when 
the  spirit  can  extract  from  all  things  the  chyle  of 
cheerfulness.  That  urchin  who  is  flinging  alms  (a 
most  gracious  act  in  childhood  !)  is  doing  so  to  the 
sound  of  his  merry  neighbor's  trumpet ;  and  yet 
the  act  performed  and  the  duty  remembered,  amid 
all  the  heydey  and  effervescence  of  the  spirits,  has 
not  lost  its  gracefulness  for  the  frolicsome  mood 
by  which  it  is  attended.  There  are  men  in  this 
world  who  dispense  their  charities  to  the  flourish  of 
their  own  trumpets  ;  and  though  they  are  practised 
performers  on  that  instrument,  and  play  with  con- 
siderable skill,  the  effect  is  unpleasing  and  the  act  a 


l66  THE    BOOK   OF  CHRISTMAS. 

mockery.  Away  go  the  light-hearted  boys  !  away 
past  the  aged  and  the  poor,  —  as  happiness  has  long 
since  done,  and  the  happy  have  long  continued  to 
do  !  —  awaking  the  shrill  echoes  of  the  road  and  all 
its  adjacent  fields  with  the  sound  of  their  revelry. 
Every  school-boy  knows  the  programme.  Flags 
flying,  horns  blowing,  racing  against  rival  chaises, 
taunts  from  the  foremost,  cheers  from  the  hindmost, 
all  sorts  of  practical  jokes  upon  each  other  and 
upon  all  they  meet  and  all  they  pass,  and  above  all, 
the  loud,  ringing  laugh,  —  the  laugh  of  boyhood,  so 
unlike  all  other  laughter,  that  comes  out  clear  and 
distinct,  direct  from  the  heart,  stopping  nowhere  on 
its  way,  not  pausing  to  be  questioned  by  the  judg- 
ment nor  restrained  by  the  memory,  presenting  no 
hollowness  nor  flatness  to  the  nicest  attention,  be- 
traying no  under-tone  to  the  finest  ear,  giving  true 
and  unbroken  "  echoes  to  the  seat  where  mirth  is 
throned,"  born  spontaneously  of  that  spirit,  and  ex- 
cited so  often  by  causes  too  minute  for  older  eyes 
to  see.  And  it  is  in  this  very  causelessness  that 
consists  the  spell  of  childhood's  laughter,  and  the 
secret  of  youth's  unmingled  joy.  We  seldom  begin 
to  seek  reasons  for  being  gay  till  we  have  had  some 
for  being  grave  ;  and  the  search  after  the  former  is 
very  apt  to  bring  us  upon  more  of  the  latter.  There 
are  tares  among  that  wheat.  The  moment  we  com- 
mence to  distrust  our  light-heartedness,  it  begins  to 
evade  us.  From  the  day  when  we  think  it  neces- 
sary to  reason  upon  our  enjoyments,  to  philosophize 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON.  167 

upon  our  mirth,  to  analyze  our  gladness,  their  free 
and  unmingled  character  is  gone.  The  toy  is  taken 
to  pieces  to  see  of  what  it  was  composed,  and  can 
no  more  be  put  together  in  the  same  perfect  form. 
They  who  have  entered  upon  the  paths  of  knowl- 
edge, or  gone  far  into  the  recesses  of  experience, 
like  the  men  of  yore  who  ventured  to  explore  the 
cave  of  Trophonius,  may  perhaps  find  some- 
thing higher  and  better  than  the  light-heartedness 
they  lose,  but  they  smile  never  more  as  they  smiled 
of  old.  The  fine,  clear  instrument  of  the  spirit 
that  we  bring  with  us  from  heaven  is  liable  to  in- 
jury from  all  that  acts  upon  it  here  ;  and  the  string 
that  has  once  been  broken  or  disordered,  repair  it 
as  we  may,  never  again  gives  out  the  precise  tone 
which  it  did  before.  The  old  man,  —  nay,  even  the 
young  man,  ■ —  let  him  be  as  merry  as  he  may,  and 
laugh  as  long  and  loudly  as  he  will,  never  laughs  as 
the  school-boy  laughs. 

But  of  all  this,  and  all  the  slumbering  passions 
yet  to  be  awakened  in  those  young  breasts,  and  of 
many  a  grief  to  come,  there  is  no  token  to  darken 
the  joy  of  to-day.  The  mighty  pleasures  towards 
which  they  are  hastening  have  as  yet  never 
"  broken  the  word  of  promise  to  their  hope."  The 
postilions  are  of  their  party,  and  even  he  with  the 
bottle-nose,  who  seems  to  be  none  of  the  youngest, 
is  a  boy  for  the  nonce.  The  very  horses  appear  to 
have  caught  the  spirit  of  the  occasion,  and  toss 
their  heads  and  lay  their  haunches  to  the  ground 


1 68  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

and  fling  out  their  forelegs  as  if  they  drew  the  car 
of  Momus.  The  village  boys  return  them  shout  for 
shout,  fling  up  their  hats  as  the  triumph  approaches, 
and  follow  it  till  their  breath  fails.  The  older  passer- 
by returns  their  uproarious  salute,  taking  no  um- 
brage at  their  mischievous  jokes  and  impish  tricks, 
and  turning,  as  the  sounds  of  the  merry  voices  die 
in  the  distance,  to  a  vision  of  the  days  when  he  too 
was  a  boy,  and  an  unconscious  rehearsal  of  the  half- 
forgotten  song  of  "  Dulce,  dulce  domum  ! " 

And  then  the  "  limen  amabile,"  and  the  "  matris 
oscula,"  and  the  "  Penates,"  towards  which  they 
are  advancing ;  the  yearning  hearts  that  wait  within 
those  homes  to  clasp  them ;  the  bright  eyes  that 
are  even  now  looking  out  from  windows  to  catch 
the  first  token  of  "  their  coming,  and  look  brighter 
when  they  come ; "  the  quiet  halls  that  shall  ring 
to-night  to  their  young  voices ;  and  the  lanes  and 
alleys  whose  echoes  they  shall  awaken  to-morrow, 
and  still  more  loudly  when  the  ice  comes ;  and, 
above  all,  the  Christmas  revelries  themselves  !  The 
whole  is  one  crowded  scene  of  enjoyment,  across 
whose  long  extent  the  happy  school-boy  has  as 
yet  caught  no  glimpse  of  that  black  Monday  which 
forms  the  opposite  and  distant  portal  of  this  haunted 
time. 

Amongst  the  signs  of  the  time  that  are  conspicu- 
ous upon  the  roads  the  traveller  whose  joumeyings 
bring  him  towards  those  which  lead  into  the  metrop- 
olis will  be  struck  by  the  droves  of  cattle  that  are 


SIGNS    OF    THE    SEASON.  1 69 

making  their  painful  way  up  to  the  great  mart  for 
this  great  festival.  But  a  still  more  striking,  though 
less  noisy,  Christmas  symptom  forms  a  very  amusing 
object  to  him  who  leaves  London  by  such  of  its 
highways  as  lead  eastward.  There  is  little  exagger- 
ation in  the  accompanying  picture  of  a  Lynn  or 
Bury  coach  on  its  town-ward  journey  with  its  freight 
of  turkeys  at  the  Christmas  season.  Nay,  as  re- 
gards the  freightage  itself,  the  artist  has  kept  himself 
within  bounds.  Many  a  time  have  we  seen  a  Nor- 
folk coach  with  its  hampers  piled  on  the  roof  and 
swung  from  beneath  the  body,  and  its  birds  de- 
pending, by  every  possible  contrivance,  from  every 
part  from  which  a  bird  could  be  made  to  hang. 
Nay,  we  believe  it  is  not  unusual  with  the  proprie- 
tors, at  this  season,  to  refuse  inside  passengers  of 
the  human  species,  in  favor  of  these  Oriental  gentry, 
who  "pay  better;"  and  on  such  occasions  of 
course  they  set  at  defiance  the  restriction  which 
limits  them  to  carrying  "  four  insides."  Within  and 
without,  the  coaches  are  crammed  with  the  bird  of 
Turkey;  and  a  gentleman  town-ward  bound,  who 
presented  himself  at  a  Norwich  coach-office  at  such 
a  time,  to  inquire  the  "  fare  to  London,"  was  pertly 
answered  by  the  bookkeeper,  "  Turkeys."  Our 
readers  will  acquit  us  of  exaggeration  when  we  tell 
them  that  Mr.  Hone,  in  his  "  Every-Day  Book," 
quotes  from  an  historical  account  of  Norwich  an 
authentic  statement  of  the  amount  of  turkeys  which 
were  transmitted  from  that  city  to  London  between 


lyO  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

a  Saturday  morning  and  the  night  of  Sunday,  in 
the  December  of  1793,  which  statement  gives  the 
number  as  one  thousand  seven  hundred,  the  weight 
as  nine  tons,  two  hundredweight,  and  two  pounds, 
and  the  value  as  ;i^68o.  It  is  added  that  in  the 
two  following  days  these  were  followed  by  half  as 
many  more.  We  are  unable  to  furnish  the  present 
statistics  of  the  matter ;  but  in  forty  years  which 
have  elapsed  since  that  time  the  demand,  and  of 
course  the  supply,  must  have  greatly  increased ; 
and  it  is  probable  that  the  coach-proprietors  find  it 
convenient  to  put  extra  carriages  on  the  road  for 
these  occasions. 

In  making  the  annexed  sketch  we  presume  that 
Mr.  Seymour  must  have  had  in  mind,  and  intended 
to  illustrate  by  "modern  instances,"  that  class  of 
"  wise  saws  "  such  as  "  Birds  of  a  feather  flock  to- 
gether," "Tell  me  the  company,  and  I  will  tell  you 
the  man,"  and  others  which  tend  generally  to  show 
that  men  are  apt  to  catch  the  hues  of  surrounding 
objects,  and  take  the  features  of  their  associates. 
If  this  was  not  his  design,  we  have  only  the  alter- 
native conclusion,  that  he  had  drawn  turkeys  till 
he  could  draw  nothing  else,  and  till  his  best  efforts 
at  representing  "  the  human  face  divine  "  resulted 
in  what  the  Scotch  call  a  "bubbly-jock."  Some 
poet,  in  describing  the  perfections  of  his  mistress's 
countenance,  speaks  of  it  as  conveying  the  impres- 
sion that  she  "  had  looked  on  heaven,  and  caught 
its  beauty."     Our  friend  the   guard  of  this  coach 


"1 


SIGNS    OF   THE   SEASON.  171 

seems  to  have  looked  on  those  turkeys  of  which  he 
has  charge  till  he  has  "  caught  their  beauty."  It  is 
impossible  to  conceive  that  the  breath  which  he  is 
pouring  into  that  horn  of  his  should  issue  in  any 
other  form  of  sound  than  that  of  a  gobble.  The 
coachman  is  clearly  a  turkey  in  disguise ;  and  the 
old-looking  figure  that  sits  behind  him,  with  some- 
thing like  a  sausage  round  its  neck,  is  probably  his 
father.  As  for  the  swan  with  two  necks  that  floats 
on  the  panel  of  the  coach-door,  it  is  a  strange- 
looking  bird  at  any  time,  but  looks  considerably 
more  strange  in  its  present  situation.  It  is  unques- 
tionably out  of  place,  and  forms  no  fitting  cognizance 
for  a  Norfolk  coach  at  Christmas  time. 

Norfolk  must  be  a  noisy  county.  There  must  be 
a  "  pretty  considerable  deal "  of  gabble  towards  the 
month  of  November  in  that  English  Turkistan. 
But  what  a  silence  must  have  fallen  upon  its  farm- 
yards since  Christmas  has  come  round  !  Turkeys 
are  indisputably  born  to  be  killed.  That  is  an 
axiom.  It  is  the  end  of  their  training,  as  it  ought 
to  be  (and,  in  one  sense,  certainly  is)  of  their  de- 
sires. And  such  being  the  destiny  of  this  bird,  it 
may  probably  be  an  object  of  ambition  with  a  re- 
spectable turkey  to  fulfil  its  fate  at  the  period  of 
this  high  festival.  Certain  it  is  that  at  no  other 
time  can  it  attain  to  such  dignities  as  belong  to 
the  turkey  who  smokes  on  the  well-stored  table  of 
a  Christmas  dinner,  —  the  most  honored  dish  of  all 
the  feast.     Something  like  an  anxiety  for  this  pro- 


172 


THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 


motion  is  to  be  inferred  from  the  breathless  haste 
of  the  turkey  of  which  our  artist  has  here  given  us 
a  sketch,  in  its  pursuit  of  the  coach  which  has  started 
for  London  without  it.  The  picture  is  evidently  a 
portrait.  There  is  an  air  of  verisimilitude  in  the 
eager  features,  and  about  the  action  altogether,  of 
the  bird,  which  stamps  it  genuine.  In  its  anxiety 
it  has  come  off  without  even  waiting  to  be  killed ; 
and  at  the  rate  after  which  it  appears  to  be  travel- 


TOO    LATE   FOR   THE   COACH. 


ling,  is,  we  think,  likely  enough  to  come  up  with  a 
heavily  laden  coach.  We  hope,  however,  that  it  is 
not  in  pursuit  of  the  particular  coach  which  we  have 
seen  on  its  way  to  the  "  Swan  with  two  Necks," 
because  we  verily  believe  there  is  no  room  on  that 
conveyance  for  a  single  additional  turkey,  even  if  it 
should  succeed  in  overtaking  it. 

One  of  the  most  striking  signs  of  the  season,  and 


Bringing  Home  Christmas.  — /'(t^^  i 


73' 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON.  1 73 

which  meets  the  eye  in  all  directions,  is  that  which 
arises  out  of  the  ancient  and  still  familiar  practice 
of  adorning  our  houses  and  churches  with  ever- 
greens during  the  continuance  of  this  festival.  The 
decorations  of  our  mantel-pieces,  and  in  many 
places  of  our  windows,  the  wreaths  which  ornament 
our  lamps  and  Christmas  candles,  the  garniture  of 
our  tables,  are  alike  gathered  from  the  hedges  and 
winter  gardens ;  and  in  the  neighborhood  of  every 
town  and  village  the  traveller  may  meet  with  some 
such  sylvan  procession  as  is  here  represented,  or 
some  group  of  boys  returning  from  the  woods 
laden  with  their  winter  greenery,  and  like  the  sturdy 
ambassador  in  the  plate,  engaged  in  what  we  have 
heard  technically  called  "bringing  home  Christmas." 
This  symptom  of  the  approaching  festivity  is  men- 
tioned by  Gay  in  his  "Trivia"  :  — 

"  When  Rosemary  and  Bays,  the  poet's  crown, 
Are  bawl'd  in  frequent  cries  through  all  the  town, 
Then  judge  the  festival  of  Christmass  near,  — 
Christmass,  the  joyous  period  of  the  year  ! 
Now  with  bright  holly  all  the  temples  strow ; 
With  Lawrel  green,  and  sacred  Misletoe." 

The  practice  of  these  decorations,  which  is  rec- 
ommended to  modem  times  by  its  own  pleasant- 
ness and  natural  beauty,  is  of  very  high  antiquity, 
and  has  been  ascribed  by  various  writers  to  various 
sources.  They  who  are  desirous  of  tracing  a  Chris- 
tian observance  to  a  Christian  cause  remind  us  of 
those  figurative  expressions  in  the  prophets  which 


174  THE   BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

speak  of  the  Messiah  as  the  "  Branch  of  righteous- 
ness," etc.,  and  describe  by  natural  allusions  the 
fertility  which  should  attend  his  coming.  "  The 
Lord  shall  comfort  Zion,"  says  Isaiah :  "  he  will 
comfort  all  her  waste  places ;  and  he  will  make  her 
wilderness  like  Eden,  and  her  desert  like  the  garden 
of  the  Lord."  Again,  "The  glory  of  Lebanon 
shall  come  unto  thee,  the  fir  tree,  the  pine  tree,  and 
the  box  together,  to  beautify  the  place  of  my  sanc- 
tuary ;  and  I  will  make  the  place  of  my  feet  glori- 
ous." And  Nehemiah,  on  an  occasion  of  rejoicing, 
orders  the  people,  after  the  law  of  Moses,  to  "  go 
forth  unto  the  mount  and  fetch  olive  branches,  and 
pine  branches,  and  myrtle  branches,  and  palm 
branches,  and  branches  of  thick  trees,"  and  to  make 
booths  thereof,  "every  one  upon  the  roof  of  his 
house,  and  in  their  courts,  and  in  the  courts  of  the 
house  of  God,"  and  in  the  streets;  "and  all  the 
congregation  of  them  that  were  come  again  out  of 
the  captivity  "  sat  under  these  booths,  "  and  there 
was  very  great  gladness."  A  writer  in  the  "  Gentle- 
man's Magazine  "  asks  if  this  custom  may  not  be  re- 
ferred, as  well  as  that  of  the  palms  on  Palm  Sunday, 
to  that  passage  in  the  Scripture  account  of  Christ's 
entry  into  Jerusalem  which  states  that  the  multitude 
"cut  down  branches  from  the  trees,  and  strawed 
them  in  the  way." 

The  practice,  however,  of  introducing  flowers  and 
branches  amongst  the  tokens  of  festivity  seems, 
and  very  naturally,  to  have  existed  universally  and 
at  all  times.     It  was,  as  we  know,  a  pagan  mani- 


SIGNS   OF   THE  SEASON.  1 75 

festation  of  rejoicing  and  worship,  and  is  forbidden 
on  that  express  ground  in  early  councils  of  the 
Christian  Church.  Hone,  in  his  "  Every-Day  Book," 
quotes  Polydore  Virgil  to  the  effect  that  "  trymming 
of  the  temples  with  hangynges,  flowres,  boughes, 
and  garlondes,  was  taken  of  the  heathen  people, 
whiche  decked  their  idols  and  houses  with  suche 
array ;  "  and  it  came  under  the  list  of  abominations 
denounced  by  the  Puritans  for  the  same  reason. 
The  practice  was  also  in  use  amongst  the  nations 
both  of  Gothic  and  Celtic  origin ;  and  Brand  quotes 
from  Dr.  Chandler's  "Travels  in  Greece"  a  very 
beautiful  superstition,  mentioned  as  the  reason  of 
this  practice,  amongst  the  votaries  of  Druidism. 
**The  houses,"  he  says,  "were  decked  with  ever- 
greens in  December,  that  the  sylvan  spirits  might 
repair  to  them  and  remain  unnipped  with  frost  and 
cold  winds  until  a  milder  season  had  renewed  the 
foliage  of  their  darling  abodes." 

In  England  the  practice,  whencesoever  derived, 
has  existed  from  the  very  earliest  days,  and,  in 
spite  of  outcry  and  prohibition,  has  come  down 
in  full  vigor  to  our  own.  In  former  times,  as  we 
learn  from  Stow,  in  his  "  Survey  of  London/'  not  only 
were  our  houses  and  churches  decorated  with  ever- 
greens, but  also  the  conduits,  standards,  and  crosses 
in  the  streets ;  and  in  our  own  day  they  continue 
to  form  a  garniture  not  only  of  our  temples  and 
our  houses,  but  constitute  a  portion  of  the  striking 
display  made  at  this  festive  season  in  our  markets 
and  from  the  windows  of  our  shops.     Holly  forms 


176  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

a   decoration   of  the   shambles,  and   every  tub   of 
butter  has  a  sprig  of  rosemary  in  its  breast. 

The  plants  most  commonly  in  use-  for  this  pur- 
pose appear  to  have  generally  been  the  holly,  the 
ivy,  the  laurel,  the  rosemary,  and  the  mistletoe ; 
although  the  decorations  were  by  no  means  lim- 
ited to  these  materials.  Brand  expresses  some 
surprise  at  finding  cypress  included  in  the  list,  as 
mentioned  in  the  tract  called  "  Round  about  our 
Coal-Fire,"  and  observes  that  he  "  should  as  soon 
have  expected  to  have  seen  the  ye7u  as  the  cypress 
used  on  this  joyful  occasion."  The  fact,  however, 
is  that  yew  is  frequently  mentioned  amongst  the 
Christmas  decorations,  as  well  as  box,  pine,  fir,  and 
indeed  the  larger  part  of  the  Christmas  plants  which 
we  have  enumerated  in  a  former  chapter.  The 
greater  number  of  these  appear  to  have  been  so 
used,  not  on  account  of  any  mystic  meanings  sup- 
posed to  reside  therein,  but  simply  for  the  sake  of 
their  greenery  or  of  their  rich  berries.  Stow  speaks 
of  the  houses  being  decked  with  "  whatsoever  the 
year  afforded  to  be  green ; "  and  Sandys  observes 
that  "at  present  great  variety  is  observed  in  dec- 
orating our  houses  and  buildings,  and  many  flowers 
are  introduced  that  were  unknown  to  our  ancestors, 
but  whose  varied  colors  add  to  the  cheerful  effect ; 
as  the  chrysanthemum,  satin-flower,  etc.,  mingling 
wdth  the  red  berry  of  the  holly  and  the  mystic 
mistletoe.  In  the  West  of  England,"  he  adds,  "  the 
myrtle  and  laurustinum  form  a  pleasing  addition." 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON,  1 77 

There  is  a  very  beautiful  custom  which  we  find 
mentioned  in  connection  with  the  subject  of  ever- 
greens as  existing  at  this  season  of  the  year  in  some 
parts  of  Germany  and  Sicily.  A  large  bough  is  set 
up  in  the  principal  room,  the  smaller  branches  of 
which  are  hung  with  little  presents  suitable  to  the 
different  members  of  the  household.  "  A  good  deal 
of  innocent  mirth  and  spirit  of  courtesy,"  it  is 
observed,  "  is  produced  by  this  custom." 

Herrick,  however  (a  poet  amid  whose  absurd 
conceits  and  intolerable  affectation  there  are  sam- 
ples of  the  sweetest  versification  and  touches  of  the 
deepest  pathos,  and  who  amongst  a  great  deal 
that  is  liable  to  heavier  objections  still,  has  pre- 
served many  curious  particulars  of  old  ceremonies 
and  obsolete  superstitions),  carries  this  custom  of 
adorning  our  houses  with  evergreens  over  the 
entire  year,  and  assigns  to  each  plant  its  pecu- 
liar and  appropriate  season.  To  Christmas  he  ap- 
points those  which  we  have  stated  to  be  most 
commonly  used  on  that  occasion,  but  insists  upon 
a  change  of  decoration  on  the  eve  of  Candlemas 
Day:  — 

"  Down  with  the  rosemary,  and  so 
Down  with  the  baies  and  misletoe  ; 
Down  with  the  holly,  ivie,  all 
Wherewith  you  drest  the  Christmas  hall ; 
That  so  the  superstitious  find 
Not  one  least  branch  there  left  behind  ;  " 

and  he  urges  the  maids  to  the  careful  performance 
of  this  charge  by  the  following  threat :  — 


178  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

"  For  look !  how  many  leaves  there  be 
Neglected  there,  maids,  trust  to  me. 
So  many  goblins  you  shall  see."     .  ■ 

The  plant  by  which  he  orders  these  to  be  replaced 
for  Candlemas  Day  is  box,  whose  turn  is  to  con- 
tinue — 

"  Until  the  dancing  Easter  Day 
Or  Easter's  Eve  appeare." 

Then  the  box  is  to  make  way  for  "  the  crisped 
yew ; "  which  is  to  be  succeeded  at  Whitsuntide 
by  birch  and  the  flowers  of  the  season  ;  and  these 
again  are  to  yield  to  the  — 

"  Green  rushes,  then,  and  sweetest  bents, 
With  cooler  oken  boughs ; " 

whose  reign  continues  till  the  period  again  comes 
round  of  preparation  for  Christmas.  We  believe 
that  it  is  still  usual  in  many  parts  of  England  to 
suffer  the  Christmas  greens  to  remain  in  the  win- 
dows of  our  churches,  and  sometimes  of  our  houses, 
until  Candlemas  Eve. 

Of  those  plants,  then,  which  are  considered  as 
containing  meanings  that  make  them  appropriate 
decorations  for  the  Christmas-tide,  or  which  have 
for  any  reason  been  peculiarly  devoted  to  that 
season,  the  laurel,  or  bay,  may  be  dismissed  in  a  few 
words.  Since  the  days  of  the  ancient  Romans  this 
tree  has  been  at  all  times  dedicated  to  all  purposes 
of  joyous  commemoration,  and  its  branches  have 
been  used   as  the  emblems  of  peace  and  victory 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON.  179 

and  joy.  Of  course  its  application  is  obvious  to  a 
festival  which  includes  them  all,  which  celebrates 
"  peace  on  earth,"  "  glad  tidings  of  great  joy,"  and 
a  triumph  achieved  over  the  powers  of  evil  and 
the  original  curse  by  the  coming  of  the  Saviour. 

We  may  add  that,  besides  forming  a  portion  of 
the  household  decorations,  it  is  usual  in  some  places 
to  fling  branches  and  sprigs  of  laurel  on  the  Christ- 
mas fire,  and  seek  for  omens  amid  the  curling  and 
crackling  of  its  leaves  :  — 

"  When  laurel!  spirts  i'  th'  fire,  and  when  the  hearth 
Smiles  to  itselfe  and  guilds  the  roofc  with  mirth ; 
When  up  the  Thyrse  is  rais'd,  and  when  the  sound 
Of  sacred  orgies  flyes  around,  around," 

says  Herrick.  At  the  two  English  universities  the 
windows  of  the  college  chapels  are  still  carefully 
decked  with  laurel  at  the  season  of  Christmas. 

The  holly  is  a  plant  of  peculiar  veneration  at  this 
period  of  the  year,  —  so  much  so  as  to  have  acquired 
to  itself  by  a  popular  metonymy  the  name  of  the 
season  itself,  being  vulgarly  called  "  Christmas." 
It  is  no  doubt  recommended  to  the  general  estima- 
tion in  which  it  is  held  by  the  picturesque  forms  of 
its  dark,  glossy  leaves  and  the  brilliant  clusters  of 
its  rich  red  berries.  There  is  in  the  Harleian 
Manuscripts  a  very  striking  carol  of  so  remote  a 
date  as  the  reign  of  Henry  VI.,  which  is  quoted 
by  most  of  the  writers  on  this  subject,  and  gives  a 
very  poetical  statement  of  the  respective  claims  of 
this  plant  and  of  the  ivy  to  popular  regard.     The 


l80  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

inference  from  the  second  and  fourth  verses  (taken 
in  connection  with  the  authorities  which  place  it 
amongst  the  plants  used  for  the  Christmas  orna- 
ments) would  seem  to  be,  that  while  the  former 
was  employed  in  the  decorations  within  doors,  the 
latter  was  confined  to  the  exteriors  of  buildings. 
Mr.  Brand,  however,  considers  those  passages  to 
allude  to  its  being  used  as  a  vintner's  sign  and 
infers  from  others  of  the  verses  that  it  was  also 
amongst  the  evergreens  employed  at  funerals.  It 
runs  thus  :  — 

"  Nay,  Ivy !  nay,  it  shall  not  be,  I  wys  ; 
Let  Holy  hafe  the  maystry,  as  the  manner  ys. 

"  Holy  stond  in  the  halle,  fayre  to  behold ; 
Ivy  stond  without  the  dore  :  she  ys  ful  sore  a  cold. 
Nay,  Ivy !  etc. 

"  Holy  and  hys  mery  men  they  dawnsyn  and  they  syng. 
Ivy  and  hur  maydenys  they  wepyn  and  they  wryng. 
Nay,  Ivy !  etc. 

"  Ivy  hath  a  lyve ;  she  laghtyt  with  the  cold  : 
So  mot  they  all  hafe  that  wyth  Ivy  hold. 

Nay,  Ivy !  etc. 

"  Holy  hat  berys  as  rede  as  any  rose, 
The  foster  the  hunters  kepe  hem  from  the  doos. 
Nay,  Ivy !  etc. 

"  Ivy  hath  berys  as  blake  as  any  slo ; 
Ther  com  the  oule  and  ete  hym  as  she  goo. 
Nay,  Ivy !  etc. 


SIGNS    OF    THE   SEASON.  l8l 

"  Holy  hath  byrdys  a  ful  fayre  flok, 
The  Nyghtyngale,  the  Poppingy,  the  gayntyl  Lavyrok. 
Nay,  Ivy !  etc. 

"  Good  Ivy,  what  byrdys  ast  thou  ? 
Non  but  the  howlet  that  kreye  '  How,  how ! ' 

Nay,  Ivy !  nay,  hyt  shal  not,  etc." 

We  had  some  thoughts  of  modernizing  the  or- 
thography, and  very  slightly  the  diction,  of  this 
curious  old  ballad ;  but  it  reads  best  in  its  own 
quaint  garb,  and  even  those  of  our  friends  who 
are  not  in  the  habit  of  perusing  ancient  writings 
will  find  scarcely  any  difficulty  in  making  it  out. 

The  rosemary,  besides  its  rich  fragrance,  and 
probably  because  thereof,  was  supposed  to  possess 
many  occult  virtues,  and  was  used  for  the  sake  of 
one  or  other  of  them  on  occasions  both  of  rejoicing 
and  of  mourning.  It  was  believed  to  clear  the 
head,  to  strengthen  the  memory,  and  to  make 
touching  appeals  to  the  heart.  For  these  reasons 
it  was  borne  both  at  weddings  and  at  funerals. 
Herrick  says  :  — 

"  Grow  for  two  ends,  it  matters  not  at  all. 
Be  't  for  my  bridal  or  my  burial." 

"There's  rosemary,"  says  Ophelia;  "that's  for 
remembrance  :  pray  you,  love,  remember ;  "  and  the 
custom  of  decking  the  corpse  with  this  flower,  as 
well  as  that  of  flinging  its  sprigs  into  the  grave, 
would  naturally  spring  out  of  this  touching  su- 
perstition.    Its  presence  at  bridals  would  seem  to 


l82  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

suggest  that  it  was  dedicated  to  hope  as  well  as  to 
memory.  We  have  in  Shakspeare's  play  of"  Romeo 
and  Juliet "  allusions  to  the  use  of  this  herb  on  both 
of  these  important  but  very  different  occasions,  which 
allusions  are  affecting  from  the  application  of  both 
to  the  same  young  girl.  The  first,  which  refers  to 
the  joyous  celebration,  occurs  in  an  interview  be- 
tween Romeo  and  the  Nurse  of  Juliet,  in  which 
arrangements  are  making  for  the  secret  marriage, 
where  the  garrulous  old  woman  observes,  as  hinting 
at  Juliet's  willingness,  "  She  hath  the  prettiest  sen- 
tentious of  it,  of  you  and  rosemary,  that  it  would 
do  you  good  to  hear  it."  The  second  is  in  that 
scene  in  which  Juliet  is  supposed  to  be  dead  : 

"Friar.     Come,  is  the  bride  ready  to  go  to  church? 
Capulet,     Ready  to  go,  but  never  to  return  !  " 

And  is  inserted  amongst  the  holy  father's  exhorta- 
tions to  resignation :  — 

"  Dry  up  your  tears,  and  stick  your  rosemary 
On  this  fair  corse ;  and,  as  the  custom  is. 
In  all  her  best  array  bear  her  to  church." 

Independently  of  the  beautiful  suggestion  to  re- 
membrance which  is  made  by  its  enduring  perfume, 
that  precious  perfume  itself  would  recommend  this 
herb,  for  reasons  less  fine,  as  "  strewings  fitt'st  for 
graves."  The  fact  of  its  being  in  bloom  at  this 
season  would  naturally  introduce  the  rosemary, 
with  all  its  fine  morals,  into  the  Christmas  celebra- 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON.  1 83 

tions ;  and  such  customs  as  that  which  prescribed 
that  the  wassail-bowl  should  be  stirred  with  a  sprig 
of  this  plant  before  it  went  round  amongst  friends, 
seem  to  have  a  very  elegant  reference  to  its  secret 
virtues  ("  that 's  for  remembrance,"  perhaps),  and 
suggest  that  the  revellings  of  the  season  in  those 
old  times  were  mingled  with  the  best  and  most 
refined  feelings  of  our  nature. 

But  the  mistletoe,  the  mystic  mistletoe, 
where  is  the  man  whose  school-boy  days  are  gone 
by,  in  whom  that  word  conjures  up  no  merry 
memories  ? 

"  Oh,  the  mistletoe-bough  ! "  who  hath  not,  at 
the  name,  thronging  visions  of  sweet  faces  that 
looked  sweetest  in  those  moments  of  their  startled 
beauty  beneath  the  pendent  bough  !  If  the  old 
spells  with  which  superstition  has  invested  the 
mistletoe  have  lost  some  of  their  power  over  me,  it 
hath  now  another,  which  in  earlier  days  I  knew  not 
of,  —  the  power  to  restore  the  distant  and  to  raise 
the  dead.  I  am  to  laugh  no  more  as  I  have 
laughed  of  old  beneath  the  influence  of  that  mystic 
cognizance  of  the  gay  Christmas-tide ;  but  even 
now  as  I  write  thereof,  look  in  upon  my  heart 
bright  portraits,  traced  with  a  skill  which  no  mor- 
tal pencil  shall  achieve,  —  faces  on  which  the  earth 
hath  long  lain,  and  others  from  whom  the  wide 
spaces  of  the  world  have  separated  me  for  many 
a  weary  year ;  and,  heavier  far,  some  to  whom 
unkindness  hath    made   me  too   long   a  stranger  ! 


184  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

There  they  rise  and  stand,  one  by  one,  beneath 
the  merry  snare,  each  with  the  heightened  beauty 
on  her  cheek,  which  is  the  transient  gift  of  the 
sacred  bough  ! 

O    M !  how  very  fair  is  thine  image  in  the 

eye  of  memory,  and  how  has  thy  going  away 
changed  all  things  for  me  !  The  bright  and  the 
beautiful  lie  still  about,  —  still  bright  and  beautiful 
even  to  me,  —  but  in  another  manner  than  when 
thou  wert  here.  All  things  are  tinged  with  thy 
loss.  All  fair  things  have  a  look,  and  all  sweet 
sounds  a  tone,  of  mourning  since  thou  leftest  me. 
How  long  it  seems,  as  if  ages,  instead  of  years, 
of  the  grave  had  grown  between  us,  as  if,  indeed, 
I  had  known  thee  in  some  former  and  far-removed 
state  of  being  !  I  do  not  love  to  think  of  thee  as 
dead,  I  strive  to  think  of  thee  rather  as  of  one 
whom  I  have  left  behind  in  the  quiet  valley  of  our 
youth  and  our  love,  —  from  whom  I  have  wandered 
forth  and  lost  my  way  amid  the  mazes  of  the  world. 
But  where  is  the  clew  that  should  lead  me  back 
to  thee?  There  may  have  been  fairer  (sweeter 
never)  things  than  thou  in  this  fair  world,  but  my 
heart  could  never  be  made  to  believe  or  under- 
stand it.  Had  I  known  thee  only  in  that  world,  1 
might  not  so  have  marked  thy  beauty;  but  thou 
wert  with  me  when  the  world  left  me.  In  the 
flood  of  the  sunshine,  when  a  thousand  birds  are 
about  us,  we  go  upon  our  way  with  a  sense  that 
there   is    melody   around,    but     singling    perhaps 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON,  185 

no  one  note  to  take  home  to  the  lieart  and  make  a 
worship  of.  But  the  one  bird  that  sings  to  us  in 
the  dim  and  silent  night  —  oh  !  none  but  they  on 
whom  the  night  has  fallen  can  know  how  dear  its 
song  becomes,  filling  with  its  music  all  the  deserted 
mansions  of  the  lonely  soul.  But  the  bird  is  dead, 
the  song  is  hushed,  and  the  houses  of  my 
spirit  are  empty  and  silent  and  desolate  ! 

And  thou  whom  the  grave  hath  not  hidden, 
nor  far  distance  removed,  from  whom  I  parted  as 
if  it  were  but  yesterday,  and  yet  of  whom  I  have 
already  learned  to  think  as  of  one  separated  from 
me  by  long  years  of  absence  and  death,  as  if  it 
were  very  long  since  I  had  beheld  thee,  —  as  if  I 
gazed  upon  thee  from  a  far  distance  across  the 
lengthened  and  dreary  alleys  of  the  valley  of  the 
dead  !  Physically  speaking,  thou  art  still  within  my 
reach  ;  and  yet  art  thou  to  me  as  if  the  tomb  or 
the  cloister  had  received  thee,  and  made  of  thee 
(what  the  world  or  the  grave  makes  of  all  things 
we  have  loved)  a  dream  of  the  night,  a  phantom 
of  the  imagination,  an  angel  of  the  memory,  a 
creation  of  the  hour  of  shadows  !  Whatever  may 
be  thy  future  fortunes,  however  thy  name  may  here- 
after be  borne  to  my  mortal  ear,  my  heart  will  ever 
refuse  to  picture  thee  but  as  one  who  died  in  her 
youth  ! 

And  thou  J — thou  too  art  there,  with  thy  long 
fair  hair  and  that  harp  of  thine  which  was  so  long 
an  ark  of  harmony  for  me.     "  Alas  !  we  had  been 


1 86  THE   BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

friends  in  youth."  But  all  things  bring  thee  back, 
and  I  am  haunted  yet,  and  shall  be  through  the 
world,  by  the  airs  which  thou  wert-wont  to  sing 
me  long  ago.  I  remember  that  even  in  those  days, 
at  times,  in  the  silent  night,  when  broken  snatches 
of  melodies  imperfectly  remembered  stole  through 
the  chambers  of  my  heart,  —  ever  in  the  sweet 
tones  in  which  it  had  learned  to  love  them,  —  I  have 
asked  myself  if  the  ties  that  bound  us  might  ever 
be  like  those  passing  and  half-forgotten  melodies ; 
if  the  time  could  ever  come  when  they  should  be 
like  an  old  song  learned  in  life's  happier  day,  and 
whose  memory  has  been  treasured,  to  make  us 
weep  in  the  years  when  the  heart  has  need  to  be 
soothed  by  weeping ;  if  there  would  ever  be  a 
day  when  thy  name  might  be  sounded  in  mine  ear 
as  the  name  of  a  stranger  !  And  that  day  has  long 
since  come,  — 

"  For  whispering  tongues  will  poison  truth." 

How  truly  may  we  be  said  to  live  but  in  the  past 
and  in  the  future,  —  to  have  our  hearts  made  up 
of  memory  and  of  hope,  for  which  the  present  be- 
comes, hour  after  hour,  more  and  more  of  a  void  ! 
And  alas  !  is  it  not  true,  as  a  consequence,  that  the 
more  they  are  occupied  with  memory,  the  less  room 
have  they  for  hope?  And  thus  the  one  is  ever 
gaining  upon  the  other,  and  the  dark  waters  of 
memory  are  hourly  spreading  upon  that  shore 
where  hope  had  room  to  build  her  edifices  and  to 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON.  187 

play  about  them,  till  at  length  they  cover  all, 
and  hope,  having  "  no  rest  for  the  sole  of  her  foot," 
flies  forward  to  a  higher  and  a  better  shore  ! 

And  such  are  my  visions  of  the  mistletoe  ;  these 
are  amongst  the  spirits  that  rise  up  to  wait  upon  my 
memory,  —  "  they  and  the  other  spirits  "  of  the  mys- 
tic bough  !  But  brighter  fancies  has  that  charmed 
branch  for  many  of  our  readers,  and  merrier  spirits 
hide  amid  its  leaves.  Many  a  pleasant  tale  could 
we  tell  of  the  mistletoe-bough  which  might  amuse 
our  readers  more  than  the  descriptions  to  which  we 
are  confined,  if  the  limits  of  our  volume  would  per- 
mit. But  already  our  space  is  scarcely  sufficient 
for  our  purpose.  We  think  we  can  promise  our 
readers  in  another  volume  a  series  of  tales  con- 
nected with  the  traditions  and  superstitions  which 
are  detailed  in  the  present,  and  which  may  serve 
as  illustrations  of  the  customs  of  the  Christmas-tide. 

Some  of  the  names  by  which  this  remarkable 
plant  were  formerly  called  are,  "  misselden,"  "  mis- 
seldine,"  and,  more  commonly,  "  missel."  Old 
Tusser  tells  us  that,  — 

"  If  snow  do  continue,  sheep  hardly  that  fare, 
Crave  mistle  and  ivy  ;  " 

and  Archdeacon  Nares  says  "  the  missel-thrush  "  is 
so  designated  "  from  feeding  on  its  berries."  From 
the  generality  of  the  examples  in  which  this  plant  is 
mentioned  by  the  name  of  "  missel,"  it  is  suggested 
to  us,  by  Mr.  Crofton  Croker  that  the    additional 


l88  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

syllable  given  to  the  name  now  in  common  use  is 
a  corruption  of  the  old  tod,  and  that  mistletoe,  or 
mistletod,  implies  a  bush,  or  bunch,  df  missel,  such 
as  is  commonly  hung  up  at  Christmas.  He  quotes 
in  support  of  this  suggestion  the  corresponding 
phrase  of  "  ivy-tod,"  which  occurs  frequently  in  the 
writings  of  the  Elizabethan  age.  If  this  be  so,  the 
expression  "  the  mistletoe-bough  "  includes  a  tau- 
tology ;  but  as  it  is  popularly  used,  we  retain  it 
for  the  instruction  of  such  antiquarians  of  remote 
future  times  as  may  consult  our  pages  for  some  ac- 
count of  the  good  old  customs  which  are  disap- 
pearing so  fast,  and  may  fail  to  reach  their  day. 

That '  this  plant  was  held  in  veneration  by  the 
pagans,  has  been  inferred  from  a  passage  in  Virgil's 
description  of  the  descent  into  the  infernal  regions. 
That  passage  is  considered  to  have  an  allegorical 
reference  to  some  of  the  religious  ceremonies 
practised  amongst  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  a 
comparison  is  therein  drawn  between  the  golden 
bough  of  the  infernal  regions,  and  what  is  obviously 
the  misletoe  :  — 

"  Quale  solet  silvis  brumali  frigore  viscum 
Fronde  virere  nova,  quod  non  sua  seminat  arbos, 
Et  croceo  fetu  teretis  circumdare  truncos,"  etc. 

The  reference  is  given  by  Mr.  Christie  in  his 
"  Enquiry  into  the  Ancient  Greek  Game  "  of  Pala-. 
medes ;  and  he  mentions  likewise  the  respect  in 
which  this  plant  was  held  by  the  Gothic  as  well  as 


SIGNS    OF    THE    SEASON.  1 89 

the  Celtic  nations.  Sandys  furnishes  a  legend  from 
the  Edda  in  proof  of  the  extraordinary  qualities 
ascribed  to  it  by  the  former.  Amongst  the  Celtic 
nations  it  is  well  known  to  have  been  an  object  of 
great  veneration,  and  the  ceremony  of  collecting  it 
by  the  Druids  against  the  festival  of  the  winter 
solstice  was  one  of  high  solemnity.  It  was  cut  by 
the  prince  of  the  Druids  himself,  and  with  a 
golden  sickle.  It  was  said  that  those  only  of  the 
oaks  were  sacred  to  the  Druids  which  had  the  mis- 
tletoe upon  them,  and  that  the  reverence  of  the 
people  towards  the  priests,  as  well  as  their  esti- 
mation of  the  mistletoe,  proceeded  in  a  great 
measure  from  the  cures  which  the  former  effected 
by  means  of  that  plant.  Medicinal  properties,  we 
believe,  are  still  ascribed  to  it,  and  it  was  not  very 
long  ago  deemed  efficacious  in  the  subduing  of 
convulsive  disorders.  Sir  John  Colbatch,  in  his  dis- 
sertation concerning  it,  observes  that  this  beauti- 
ful plant  must  have  been  designed  by  the  Almighty 
"  for  further  and  more  noble  purposes  than  barely 
to  feed  thrushes,  or  to  be  hung  up  surreptitiously  in 
houses  to  drive  away  evil  spirits."  Against  the  lat- 
ter it  appears  to  have  been  used  as  a  charm  up  to 
the  last  century. 

Its  introduction  into  the  Christian  festival  might 
therefore  be  considered  appropriate  as  emblematic 
of  the  conquest  obtained  over  the  spirits  of  dark- 
ness by  the  event  of  the  Nativity ;  and  perhaps 
its  supposed  healing  properties  might  be  deemed  to 


igO  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

recommend  it  further,  as  a  symbol  of  the  moral 
health  to  which  man  was  restored  from  the  original 
corruption  of  his  nature,  and  a  fitting  demonstra- 
tion of  the  joy  which  hailed  the  "  Sun  of  Righte- 
ousness" that  had  arisen,  "with  healing  in  his 
wings. " 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  however.  Brand  is  of 
opinion  that  its  heathen  origin  should  exclude  it 
at  all  events  from  the  decorations  of  our  churches, 
and  quotes  a  story  told  him  by  an  old  sexton  at 
Teddington,  in  Middlesex,  of  the  clergyman  of  that 
place  having  observed  this  profane  plant  inter- 
mingled with  the  holly  and  ivy  which  adorned  the 
church,  and  ordered  its  immediate  removal.  Wash- 
ington Irving,  who  has  studied  old  English  customs 
and  manners  with  sincere  regard,  introduces  a  simi- 
lar rebuke  from  the  learned  parson  to  his  unlearned 
clerk,  in  his  account  of  the  Christmas  spent  by  him 
at  Bracebridge  Hall. 

The  reverence  of  the  mistletoe  among  the  Ancient 
Britons  appears,  however,  to  have  been  limited  to 
that  which  grew  upon  the  oak  ;  whereas  the  Viscum 
album,  or  common  mistletoe,  —  the  sight  of  whose 
pearly  berries  brings  the  flush  into  the  cheek  of  the 
maiden  of  modern  days,  —  may  be  gathered  be- 
sides from  the  old  apple-tree,  the  hawthorn,  the 
lime-tree,  and  the  Scotch  or  the  silver  fir.  Whether 
there  remain  any  traces  of  the  old  superstitions 
which  elevated  it  into  a  moral  or  a  medical  amulet, 
—  beyond  that  which  is  connected  with  the  custom 


The  Mistletoe  Bough. — Page  191. 


\ 


SIGNS    OF    THE   SEASON.  191 

alluded  to  in  the  opening  of  our  remarks  upon  this 
plant,  and  represented,  by  our  artist  here,  —  we 
know  not.  We  should,  however,  be  very  sorr}'  to 
see  any  light  let  in  amongst  us  which  should  fairly 
rout  a  belief  connected  with  so  agreeable  a  privilege 
as  this.  That  privilege,  as  all  our  readers  know, 
consists  in  the  right  to  kiss  any  female  who  may  be 
caught  under  the  mistletoe-bough,  —  and,  we  may 
hope,  will  continue,  for  its  own  pleasantness,  even 
if  the  superstition  from  which  it  springs  should  be 
finally  lost.  This  superstition  arose,  clearly  enough, 
out  of  the  old  mystic  character  of  the  plant  in  ques- 
tion, and  erects  it  into  a  charm,  the  neglect  of 
which  exposes  to  the  imminent  danger  of  all  the 
evils  of  old-maidenism.  For,  according  to  Arch- 
deacon Nares,  the  tradition  is,  "  that  the  maid  who 
was  not  kissed  under  it,  at  Christmas,  would  not 
be  married  in  that  year,"  —  by  which,  we  presume, 
the  Archdeacon  means  in  the  following  year.  Ac- 
cordingly, a  branch  of  this  parasitical  plant  was 
hung  (formerly  with  great  state,  but  now  it  is 
generally  suspended  with  much  secrecy)  either 
from  the  centre  of  the  roof,  or  over  the  door,  —  and 
we  recommend  this  latter  situation  to  our  readers, 
both  as  less  exposed  to  untimely  observation,  and 
because  every  maiden  who  joins  the  party  must  of 
necessity  do  so  by  passing  under  it.  We  learn 
from  Brand  that  the  ceremony  was  not  duly  per- 
formed unless  a  berry  was  plucked  off  with  each 
kiss.     This  berry,  it  is  stated  by  other  authorities. 


192  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

was  to  be  presented  for  good  luck  to  the  maiden 
kissed ;  and  Washington  Irving  adds  that  "  when 
the  berries  are  all  plucked,  the  privilege  ceases." 
If  this  be  so,  it  behooves  the  maidens  of  a  household 
to  take  good  care  that  the  branch  provided  for 
the  occasion  shall  be  as  well  furnished  with  these 
pearly  tokens  as  the  feast  is  Hkely  to  be  with  candi- 
dates for  the  holy  state  of  matrimony.  The  prac- 
tice is  still  of  very  common  observance  in  kitchens 
and  servants'  halls,  particularly  in  the  country. 
But,  as  we  have  hinted,  we  have  met  with  it  (and 
so,  we  dare  say,  have  most  of  our  readers)  in 
higher  scenes ;  and  many  a  merry  laugh  have  we 
heard  ring  from  beneath  the  mistletoe-bough. 
There  are  lips  in  the  world  that  we  would  gladly 
meet  there  in  this  coming  season. 

Another  of  the  symptoms  of  the  approaching 
season  which  has,  at  least  to  us,  a  very  pleasing 
effect,  consists  in  the  bursts  of  solemn  minstrelsy 
by  which  we  are  aroused  from  our  slumbers  in  the 
still  hour  of  the  winter  nights,  or  which,  failing 
to  break  our  sleep,  mingle  with  our  dreams,  leading 
us  into  scenes  of  enchantment,  and  filling  them 
with  unearthly  music.  This  midnight  minstrelsy, 
whether  it  comes  in  the  shape  of  human  voices, 
hallowing  the  night  by  the  chanting  of  the  Christ- 
mas carol,  or  breaks  upon  the  silence  of  the  mid- 
watches  from  the  mingling  instruments  of  those 
wandering  spirits  of  harmony,  the  waits,  has  in 
each  case  its  origin  in  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis,  —  the 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON.  193 

song  with  which  the  angels  hailed  the  birth  of  the 
Redeemer  in  the  fields  near  Bethlehem.  "  As 
soon,"  says  Jeremy  Taylor,  "  as  these  blessed  chor- 
isters had  sung  their  Christmas  carol,  and  taught 
the  Church  a  hymn  to  put  into  her  offices  forever 
on  the  anniversary  of  this  festivity,  the  angels  re- 
turned into  heaven."  Accordingly,  these  nocturnal 
hymns,  although  they  spread  over  the  entire  period  of 
Advent,  grow  more  and  more  fervent  and  frequent 
as  the  season  approaches,  and  the  night  which 
ushers  in  the  great  day  itself  is  filled  through- 
out all  its  watches  with  the  continued  sounds  of 
sacred  harmony.  How  beautiful  is  the  eflect  given 
to  this  music  by  this  consideration  of  its  meaning 
and  its  cause  !  Many  and  many  a  time  have  we 
been  awakened  by  the  melody  of  the  waits  when 

"  The  floor  of  heaven 
IVas  thick  inlaid  with  patines  of  bright  gold,"  — 

and  have  lain  and  listened  to  their  wild  minstrelsy, 
its  solemn  swells  and  "  dying  falls  "  kept  musical 
by  the  distance  and  made  holy  by  the  time,  till  we 
have  felt  amid  all  those  influences  as  if  it  were 

"No  mortal  business,  nor  no  sound 
That  the  earth  owes," 

and  could  have  fancied  that  the  "  morning  stars " 
were  again  singing,  as  of  old  they  "  sang  together 
for  joy,"  and  that  the  sounds  of  their  far  anthem 
came  floating  to  the  earth.  This  sort  of  fancy  ha? 
13 


194  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

occurred  over  and  over  again  to  him  who  has  looked 
out  from  his  bed  upon  a  sky  full  of  stars,  and  lis- 
tened at  the  same  time  to  invisible  and  distant  music, 
under  the  holy  impressions  of  the  season.  Shak- 
speare  has  helped  us  to  this  feeling,  perhaps,  as  we 
can  trace  his  influence  upon  all  our  feelings,  and 
upon  none  more  than  the  most  sacred  or  the  most 
solemn :  — 

"  There  's  not  the  smallest  orb  which  thou  behold'st, 
But  in  his  motion  like  an  angel  sings. 
Still  quiring  to  the  young-eyed  cherubims  ; 
Such  harmony  is  in  immortal  souls." 

To  the  rudest  carol  that  ever  flung  its  notes  upon 
the  still  air  of  these  solemn  hours  we  have  heark- 
ened with  a  hush  of  pleasure  which  recognized  how 
well  — 

"  Soft  stillness,  and  the  night. 
Become  the  touches  of  sweet  harmony !  " 

And  the  wildest  music  that  ever  broke  upon  that 
solemn  calm  from  the  instruments  of  the  most  un- 
skilful waits,  —  if  it  were  but  remote  enough  to  keep 
its  asperities  out  of  the  ear,  and  send  us  only  its 
floating  tones,  —  has  brought  Shakspeare  into  our 
hearts  again :  — 

"  Portia.    Methinks  it  sounds  much  sweeter  than  by  day. 
Nerissa.     Silence  bestows  that  virtue  on  it,  madam." 

The  waits  of  to-day  are  the  remote  and  degene- 
rated successors  of  those  ancient  bards  who  filled 
an  important  place  in  the  establishments  of  princes 


SIGNS    OF   THE   SEASON.  1 95 

and  nobles,  as  also  of  those  wandering  members 
of  the  fraternity  who,  having  no  fixed  position,  car- 
ried their  gift  of  music  from  place  to  place  as  the 
tournament  or  the  festival  invited.  Those  of  our 
readers  who  have  much  acquaintance  with  the  old 
chroniclers  have  not  to  be  told  by  us  that  these 
latter  were  frequently  drawn  together  in  consider- 
able numbers  by  the  Christmas  celebrations.  The 
name  "  wait,"  or  "  wayte,"  itself  is  of  great  antiquity 
amongst  us,  and  appears  to  have  been  the  title 
given  to  some  member  of  the  band  of  minstrels 
who  either  replaced  the  ancient  minstrel-chronicler 
in  the  royal  establishments,  or  was  probably  under 
his  direction,  the  duty  of  which  particular  member 
it  was  to  pass  at  night  from  door  to  door  of  the 
chambers  and  pipe  the  watches  upon  some  species 
of  instrument.  As  early  as  the  reign  of  Edward 
III.  we  have  mention  of  this  individual  minstrel 
by  his  title  of  "  wayte,"  and  in  the  subsequent  ordi- 
nances for  royal  households  the  name  frequently 
occurs.  Dr.  Burney,  in  his  "  History  of  Music," 
quotes  from  the  "  Liber  niger  domus  regis,"  of  Ed- 
ward IV.'s  time,  a  full  description  of  the  duties, 
privileges,  and  perquisites  of  this  ancient  officer. 
It  is  probably  from  this  member  of  the  royal 
household  and  his  office  that  the  corporations  for 
towns  borrowed  their  earliest  appointment  of  watch- 
men ;  and  the  ancestors  of  those  ancient  gentlemen 
whose  most  sweet  voices  are  amongst  the  lost 
sounds  of   the    metropolis,  and  whose    mysterious 


196  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

cries  will  soon,  we  fear,  be  a  dead  language,  were 
no  doubt  in  their  original  institution  minstrels  or 
waits.  The  sworn  waits  are,  we  believe,  still  at- 
tached to  many  corporations  (although  some  of 
their  duties  have  been  alienated,  and  some  of  their 
prerogatives  usurped),  and  amongst  others  to  that 
of  the  City  of  London.  The  bellman  and  those 
"  wandering  voices,"  the  watchmen,  where  they  still 
exist,  have,  however,  a  title  to  the  same  high  and 
far  descent,  and  have  succeeded  to  most  of  the 
offices  of  the  ancient  waits.  It  would  seem,  too, 
that  both  these  latter  important  personages  have 
at  all  times  had  it  in  view  to  assert  their  claim  to 
a  minstrel  origin,  their  announcements  being  gener- 
ally chanted  in  a  species  of  music  quite  peculiar  to 
themselves,  and  such  as  the  world  can  never  hope 
to  hear  again  when  these  gentry  shall  be  extinct. 
"  Oh,  what  a  voice  is  silent ! "  wrote  Barry 
Cornwall  long  before  the  introduction  of  the  new 
police  into  our  streets ;  and  the  passionate  excla- 
mation must  surely  have  originated  in  a  prophetic 
vision  of  the 'extinction  of  the  Dogberry  who  piped 
the  night-watches  in  Bedford  Square.  As  for  those 
wandering  musicians  who  charm  the  long  nights  of 
the  Christmas  time  with  unofficial  music,  and  are 
waits  by  courtesy,  they  bear  the  same  relation  to 
the  corporation  minstrels  of  modern  times  as  did 
the  traviilling  bards  of  former  days  to  the  ancient 
minstrels  who  were  established  in  the  households 
of  nobles  or  of  kings.     The   waits   still   on   some 


Waits. — Page  197. 


SIGNS    OF    THE    SEASON.  I97 

occasions  close  their  performance  by  calling  the 
hour,  and  by  certain  other  announcements  de- 
scriptive of  the  weather  or  characteristic  of  the 
season. 

The  sacred  origin  and  meaning  of  this  practice 
have,  however,  in  modern  days  been  a  good  deal 
lost  sight  of  by  these  uncertificated  harmonists 
in  their  selection  of  tunes.  In  London,  particu- 
larly, the  appropriate  music  of  religious  celebration, 
which  in  awaking  the  sleeper  should  bring  the 
lessons  of  the  season  directly  to  his  heart,  are 
(excepting  perhaps  on  the  eve  of  the  Nativity  it- 
self) most  frequently  supplanted  by  the  airs  of  the 
theatre ;  and  the  waits  for  the  most  part  favor  us 
by  night  with  repetitions  of  the  melodies  with 
which  the  barrel- organists  have  labored  to  make 
us  familiarly  acquainted  during  the  day.  It  is 
with  some  such  strain  that  the  group  of  instru- 
mentalists, by  whom  our  artist  has  here  represented 
these  peripatetic  musicians,  appear  to  be  regaling 
their  neighborhood,  in  so  far  as  we  may  venture  to 
judge  of  the  character  of  the  music,  by  the  accom- 
paniment which  it  is  receiving  from  the  lady  in  the 
distance.  Not  that  we  could  by  any  means  have 
conjectured  from  the  appearance  of  the  performers 
themselves  that  the  air,  however  profane,  had  been 
at  all  of  the  lively,  unless  what  poor  Matthews 
called  the  "deadly  lively,"  kind,  —  and,  in  fact,  the 
vicinity  in  which  the  lady  appears  may  perhaps 
suggest  that  her  joyous  inspiration  is  not  derived 


198  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

wholly  from  the  music.  She  appears  to  be  dancing 
"  unto  her  own  heart's  song."  If  we  may  presume 
to  argue  from  the  aspects  and  attitudes  of  the 
gentlemen  of  the  bass-viol  and  flute,  he  of  the 
trombone  (who  is  evidently  performing  with  con- 
siderable energy)  appears  to  have  got  a  good  way 
before  his  companions  without  being  at  all  con- 
scious of  it ;  and  indeed  there  is  something  about 
his  accoutrements,  if  carefully  inspected,  which 
seems  to  hint  that  the  source  of  his  vigor,  and 
perhaps  of  his  unconsciousness,  is  of  the  same 
kind  with  that  of  the  lady's  liveliness.  We  have 
in  the  case  of  each  a  sort  of  insinuation  as  to  the 
cause  of  the  spirited  character  of  the  performances, 
and  in  that  of  our  friend  with  the  trombone  it 
seems  a  good  deal  more  clear  that  his  pocket  has 
contributed  to  the  supply  of  his  instrument  than 
that  his  instrument  will  ever  do  much  for  the  sup- 
ply of  his  pocket.  As  for  the  violin,  it  is  clearly 
in  the  enjoyment  of  a  sinecure  at  this  late  hour, 
the  sensitive  performer  having  apparently  lulled 
himself  to  sleep  with  his  own  music.  "  Poor 
knave,  I  blame  thee  not ;  thou  art  o'er  watched  ! " 

"  O  murd'rous  slumber, 
Lay'st  thou  thy  leaden  mace  upon  my  boy 
That  plays  thee  music  ?     Gentle  knave,  good  night ; 
I  will  not  do  thee  so  much  wrong  to  wake  thee." 

But  we  will  not  answer  for  the  old  gentleman  with 
the  water-jug,  who  looks  down  so  benignantly  from 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON.  199 

that  window  overhead.  He  seems  about  to  furnish 
an  illustration  of  the  assertion  that  — 

"  The  heart  that  music  cannot  melt, 
Is  fit  for  treasons,  stratagems,  and  spoils  ;  " 

and  appears  to  have  conceived  a  stratagem  against 
the  group  below  which,  if  carried  into  success- 
ful execution  on  this  winter  night,  will  probably 
spoil  more  than  the  music.  It  bids  fair  at  once 
to  waken  the  violin-player  and  to  silence  the 
trombone. 

The  practice  of  hailing  the  Nativity  with  music, 
in  commemoTation  of  the  song  of  the  angels,  is  in 
full  observance  in  Roman  Catholic  countries  as 
well  as  in  our  own.  There  are,  we  fancy,  few  of 
our  readers  who  have  not  had  opportunities  of 
listening  to  the  divine  strains  which  mingle  in  the 
Roman  services  that  usher  in  the  blessed  morning 
itself  The  noels  of  France  are  of  the  same  char- 
acter as  the  Christmas  carols  of  England ;  and  the 
visits  of  our  street  musicians  at  this  season  are 
closely  resembled  by  the  wanderings  of  the  Italian 
pifferari.  These  pifferari  are  Calabrian  shepherds 
who  come  down  from  the  mountains  at  the  season 
of  Advent,  and  enter  the  Italian  cities,  saluting 
with  their  hill  music  the  shrines  of  the  Virgin  and 
Child  which  adorn  the  streets.  Of  these  rude  min- 
strels Lady  Morgan,  in  her  "  Italy,"  gives  some  ac- 
count, and  states  that  having  frequently  observed 
them  stopping  to  play  before  the  shop  of  a  carpen- 


200  THE    BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

ter  in  Rome,  her  inquiries  on  the  subject  were  an- 
swered by  the  information  that  the  intention  of  this 
part  of  their  performance,  was  to  give  his  due  share 
of  honor  to  Saint  Joseph.  Our  friend  Mr.  Hone,  in 
his  "  Every-Day  Book,"  has  given,  from  an  old  print 
in  his  possession,  a  representation  of  this  practice, 
in  which  two  of  these  mountaineers  are  playing  be- 
fore the  shrine  of  the  Virgin.  The  practice  is  con- 
tinued till  the  anniversary  day  of  the  Nativity. 

With  modern  carol-singing  there  are  few  of  our 
readers,  in  town  or  in  country  (for  the  practice, 
like  that  of  which  we  have  just  spoken,  is  still  very 
general),  who  are  not  well  acquainted.  For  some 
curious  antiquarian  information  on  the  subject  we 
must  refer  them  to  Mr.  Sandys's  Introduction,  and 
to  a  paper  in  Mr.  Hone's  book  of  "  Ancient  Mys- 
teries." The  word  itself  is  derived  by  Brand,  after 
Bourne,  from  cantare,  to  sing,  and  rola,  an  in- 
terjection of  joy;  and  although  in  vulgar  accept- 
ance it  has  come  to  be  understood  as  implying 
particularly  those  anthems  by  which  the  Christmas- 
tide  is  distinguished,  it  has  at  all  times  been  proper- 
ly applied  to  all  songs  which  are  sung  upon  any 
occasion  of  festival  or  rejoicing.  In  strictness, 
therefore,  even  in  its  application  to  the  musical 
celebrations  of  Advent,  a  distinction  should  be 
drawn  between  those  carols  which  are  of  a  joyous 
or  festive  character,  and  those  more  solemn  ones 
which  would  be  better  described  by  the  title  of 
Christmas  hymns. 


SIGXS   OF   THE   SEASON.  20I 

The  practice  itself,  as  applied  to  religious  com- 
memoration, is  drawn  from  the  very  first  ages  of  the 
Church.  It  is  frequently  referred  to  in  the  Apos- 
tolic writings,  and  the  celebrated  letter  of  the 
younger  Pliny  to  the  Emperor  Trajan,  in  the 
seventh  year  of  the  second  Christian  century,  men- 
tions, amongst  the  habits  of  the  primitive  Christians, 
their  assembling  at  stated  times  "  to  sing  among 
themselves  alternately  a  hymn  to  Christ,  as  to 
God."  Such  a  practice,  however,  constitutes  no 
peculiarity  of  the  new  worship,  hymns  of  praise 
to  their  deities  having  made  a  portion  of  the  rites 
of  most  religions.  Indeed,  in  the  more  severe 
times  of  the  Early  Church  there  are  prohibitions 
against  this  form  of  worship,  as  against  several 
other  practices  to  which  we  have  alluded,  on  the 
express  ground  of  its  resemblance  to  one  of  the 
customs  of  the  pagan  celebration. 

The  custom  of  celebrating  the  festivities  of  the 
season  by  the  singing  of  carols  in  these  islands, 
appears  to  have  mingled  with  the  Christmas  observ- 
ances from  the  earliest  period.  We  have  speci- 
mens of  the  carols  themselves  of  a  remote  date,  and 
have  already  given  an  extract  from  one,  the  man- 
uscript of  which,  in  the  British  Museum,  is  dated 
as  far  back  as  the  thirteenth  century.  There  are 
evidences  of  the  universality  of  the  practice  in  the 
fifteenth  century ;  and  the  great  popularity  of  these 
songs  about  this  time  is  proved  by  the  fact  of  a 
collection  thereof  having  been  printed  in  the  early 


202  THE    BOOK    OP'   CHRISTMAS. 

part  of  the  following  century  by  Wynkyn  de  Worde. 

It  is  to  the  Puritans  that  we  appear  to  have  been 
indebted  for  the  introduction  of  the  religious  carol. 
Those  enemies  of  all  mirth,  even  in  its  most 
innocent  or  valuable  forms,  finding  the  practice  of 
carol-singing  at  this  festive  time  too  general  and 
rooted  to  be  dealt  with  by  interdiction,  appear  to 
have  endeavored  to  effect  their  objects  by  directing 
it  into  a  channel  of  their  own,  and  probably  re- 
taining the  ancient  airs,  to  have  adapted  them  to 
the  strange  religious  ballads,  of  which  we  must  give 
our  readers  a  few  specimens.  The  entire  version 
of  the  Psalms  of  David  made  by  Stemhold  and 
Hopkins  was  published  about  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth  century ;  and  some  time  before  the  mid- 
dle of  the  seventeenth  a  duodecimo  volume  ap- 
peared, under  the  title  of  "Psalmes  or  Songs 
of  Zion,  turned  into  the  language  and  set  to  the 
tunes  of  a  strange  land,  by  W.  S.  [WiUiam  Slatyr], 
intended  for  Christmas  Carols  and  fitted  to  di- 
vers of  the  most  noted  and  common  but  solemne 
tunes  everywhere  in  this  land  familiarly  used  and 
knowne." 

Of  these  old  ballads  of  both  kinds,  many  (and 
snatches  of  more)  have  survived  to  the  present  day, 
and  may  be  heard,  particularly  in  the  Northern 
counties  of  England,  ringing  through  the  frosty  air 
of  the  long  winter  nights,  in  the  shrill  voices  of 
children,  for  several  weeks  before  Christmas,  prob- 
ably, too,  to  the  old  traditional  tunes.     They  are, 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON.  203 

however,  as  might  be  expected  of  compositions 
which  have  no  more  substantial  depositary  than  the 
memories  of  the  humble  classes  of  the  young,  full 
of  corruptions,  which  render  some  of  them  nearly 
unintelligible.  The  difficulty  of  restoring  these  old 
carols  in  their  original  forms  is  becoming  yearly 
greater,  in  consequence  of  the  modern  carols,  which 
are  fast  replacing  them  by  a  sort  of  authority.  In 
country  places  many  of  the  more  polished  carols, 
of  modern  composition,  find  their  way  into  the 
Church  services  of  this  season  ;  and  amongst  the 
singers  who  practise  this  manner  of  appealing  to 
the  charities  of  the  season  with  most  success  are 
the  children  of  the  Sunday-schools  and  the  chor- 
isters of  the  village  church.  These,  with  their  often 
sweet  voices,  bring  to  our  doors  the  more  select 
hymns  and  the  musical  training  which  they  have 
gathered  for  more  sacred  places ;  and  from  a 
group  like  that  which  stands  at  the  parsonage  door 
in  our  plate,  we  are  more  likely  to  hear  some  carol 
of  Heber's,  some  such  beautiful  anthem  as  that 
beginning,  "  Hark  !  the  herald  angels  sing,"  than 
the  strange,  rambhng  old  Christmas  songs  which 
we  well  remember  when  we  were  boys.  These 
latter,  however,  occasionally  are  not  without  a  wild 
beauty  of  their  own.  We  quote  a  fragment  of  one 
of  them  from  memory.     We  think  it  begins  :  — 

"  The  moon  shines  bright,  and  the  stars  give  light, 
A  little  before  the  day ;  " 


204  THE   BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

and  wanders  on  somewhat  after  the  following  un- 
connected fashion  :  — 

"  Awake,  awake,  good  people  all ! 
Awake,  and  you  shall  hear 
How  Christ  our  Lord  died  on  the  cross 
For  those  he  loved  so  dear. 

"  O  fair,  O  fair  Jerusalem  ! 

When  shall  I  come  to  thee  ? 
When  shall  my  griefs  be  at  an  end, 
That  1  thy  tents  may  see  ! 

"  The  fields  were  green  as  green  could  be 
When,  from  his  glorious  seat. 
The  Lord  our  God  he  watered  us 
With  his  heavenly  good  and  sweet. 

"  And  for  the  saving  of  our  souls 
Christ  died  upon  the  cross  ! 
We  never  shall  do  for  Jesus  Christ 
What  he  has  done  for  us  ! 

"  The  life  of  man  is  but  a  span. 
And  cut  down  in  its  flower  ; 
We  're  here  to-day,  and  gone  to-morrow. 
We  're  all  dead  in  an  hour. 

"  Oh,  teach  well  your  children,  men  I 
The  while  that  you  are  here. 
It  will  be  better  for  your  souls, 
When  your  corpse  lies  on  the  bier. 

"  To-day  you  may  be  alive,  dear  man, 
With  many  a  thousand  pound  ; 
To-morrow  you  may  be  a  dead  man, 
And  your  corpse  laid  under  ground,  — 


SIGNS    OF   THE   SEASON.  205 

"  With  a  turf  at  your  head,  dear  man, 
And  another  at  your  feet. 
Your  good  deeds  and  your  bad  ones 
They  will  together  meet. 

"  My  song  is  done,  and  I  must  begone, 
I  can  stay  no  longer  here ; 
God  bless  you  all,  both  great  and  small, 
And  send  you  a  happy  new  year." 

Our  Lancashire  readers  know  that  a  similar  wish 
to  that  expressed  in  the  two  last  lines  is  generally 
delivered  in  recitative  at  the  close  of  each  carol,  or 
before  the  singers  abandon  our  doors,  —  which  wish, 
however,  we  have  heard  finally  changed  into  a  less 
quotable  ejaculation  in  cases  where  the  carolists 
had  been  allowed  to  sing  unregarded. 

The  gradual  decay  into  which  these  ancient 
religious  ballads  are  rapidly  falling  was  in  some 
measure  repaired  by  Mr.  Davies  Gilbert  in  1823, 
who  published  a  collection  containing  upwards  of 
twenty  carols  in  a  restored  state,  with  the  tunes  to 
which  it  was  usual  to  sing  them  in  the  West  of  Eng- 
land. Of  Welsh  carols  various  collections  are 
mentioned  both  by  Hone  and  by  Sandys,  and  in 
that  country  the  practice  is  in  better  preservation 
than  even  in  England.  In  Ireland,  too,  it  exists  to 
the  present  day,  although  we  have  not  met  with 
any  collection  of  Irish  carols ;  and  in  France,  where 
there  are  numerous  collections  under  the  title  of 
noils,  the  custom  is  universal.  In  Scotland,  how- 
ever, it  was  extinguished,  with  the  other  Christmas 


206  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

practices,  by  the  thunders  of  John  Knox  and  his 
precisians,  and  we  believe  has  never  been  in  any 
degree  restored.  We  should  add  that  there  are 
numerous  carols  for  the  Christmas  season  scat- 
tered through  the  writings  of  our  old  poets,  amongst 
whom  Herrick  may  be  mentioned  as  conspicuous. 

But  the  most  ample  and  curious  published  col- 
lection of  Christmas  carols  with  which  we  have 
met  is  that  by  Mr.  Sandys  to  which  we  have  so 
often  alluded;  and  from  the  text  of  this  collec- 
tion we  will  give  our  readers  one  or  two  specimens 
of  the  quaint  beauties  which  occasionally  mingle 
in  the  curious  texture  of  these  old  anthems.  Mr. 
Sandys's  collection  is  divided  into  two  parts,  the 
first  of  which  consists  of  ancient  carols  and  Christ- 
mas songs  from  the  early  part  of  the  fifteenth  to  the 
end  of  the  seventeenth  century.  We  wish  that  in 
cases  where  the  authorship  belongs  to  so  conspicu- 
ous a  name  as  Herrick,  —  and  indeed  in  all  cases 
where  it  is  ascertained,  —  the  names  of  the  authors 
had  been  prefixed.  The  second  part  comprises  a 
selection  from  carols  which  the  editor  states  to  be 
still  used  in  the  West  of  England.  We  can  inform 
him  that  many  of  these  we  have  ourselves  heard, 
only  some  dozen  years  ago,  screamed  through  the 
sharp  evening  air  of  Lancashire  at  the  top  pitch  of 
voices  that  could  clearly  never  have  been  given  for 
any  such  purposes,  "  making  night  hideous,"  or 
occasionally  filling  the  calm  watches  with  the  far- 
lulling  sounds  of  wild,  sweet  harmony.     The  prac- 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON.  207 

tice,  however,  is,  under  any  circumstances,  full  of 
fine  meanings  that  redeem  the  rudeness  of  per- 
formance ;  and  for  ourselves,  we  like  the  music  at 
its  best  and  worst. 

Of  the  festive  songs  we  have  already  given 
occasional  examples  in  the  progress  of  this  work, 
and  shall  just  now  confine  ourselves  to  extracts 
from  those  of  a  more  religious  character.  From 
the  old  part  of  the  collections  before  us  we  will 
give  a  verse  of  a  short  carol  which,  while  it  will  ex- 
hibit in  a  very  modified  degree  the  familiar  tone 
in  which  the  writers  of  these  ancient  songs  dealt 
with  the  incidents  of  the  sacred  story,  is  full  of  a 
tenderness  arising  out  of  that  very  manner  of  treat- 
ment. We  give  it  in  the  literal  form  in  which 
we  find  it  in  this  collection,  with  the  exception  of 
extending  an  occasional  cypher.  It  begins  with  a 
burden  :  — 

"  A,  my  dere  son,  sayd  mary,  a,  my  dere, 
Kys  thi  moder,  Jhesu,  with  a  lawghyng  chere  ; '" 

and  continues  :  — 

"  This  endnes  nyght  I  sawe  a  syght 

all  in  my  slepe, 
Mary  that  may  she  sang  lullay 

and  sore  did  wepe. 
To  kepe  she  sawght  full  fast  a  bowte 

her  son  fro  cold  ; 
Joseph  seyd,  wiff,  my  joy,  my  leff, 

say  what  ye  wolde  ; 


2o8  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

No  thyng  my  spouse  is  In  this  howse 

unto  my  pay ; 
My  son  a  kyng  that  made  all  thyng 

lyth  in  hay. 

"  A,  my  dere  son." 

Some  of  these  ancient  carols  run  over  the  princi- 
pal incidents  in  the  scheme  of  man's  fall  and 
redemption  ;  and  we  are  sorry  that  our  limits  will 
not  permit  us  to  give  such  lengthened  specimens 
as  we  should  desire.  We  will,  however,  copy  a 
few  verses  from  one  of  a  different  kind,  in  which, 
beneath  its  ancient  dress,  our  readers  will  see  that 
there  is  much  rude  beauty.     It  begins  :  — 

"  I  come  from  heuin  to  tell 
The  best  nowellis  that  ever  be  fell." 

But  we  must  take  it  up  further  on  :  — 

"  My  saull  and  lyfe,  stand  up  and  see 
Quha  lyes  in  ane  cribe  of  tree  ; 
Quhat  babe  is  that  so  gude  and  faire  ? 
It  is  Christ,  God's  Sonne  and  Aire. 


O  God,  that  made  all  creature, 
How  art  thou  becum  so  pure. 
That  on  the  hay  and  straw  will  lye, 
Amang  the  asses,  oxin,  and  kye  ? 

'  And  were  the  world  ten  tymes  so  wide, 
Cled  ouer  with  gold  and  stanes  of  pride. 
Unworthy  zit  it  were  to  thee. 
Under  thy  feet  ane  stule  to  bee. 


SIGNS    OF   THE   SEASON.  209 

"  The  sylke  and  sandell,  thee  to  eis, 
Are  hay  and  sempill  sweiling  clais, 
Quhairin  thow  gloiris,  greitest  king, 
As  thow  in  heuin  were  in  thy  ring. 


"  O  my  deir  hert,  zoung  Jesus  sweit, 
Prepare  thy  creddill  in  my  spreit, 
And  I  sail  rock  thee  in  my  hert, 
And  neuer  mair  from  thee  depart." 

The  Star-song  in  this  collection  is,  if  our  memory 
mislead  us  not,  Herrick's,  and  taken  from  his 
"  Noble  Numbers."     It  begins  :  — 

"  Tell  us,  thou  cleere  and  heavenly  tongue, 
Where  is  the  babe  but  lately  sprung  ? 
Lies  he  the  lillie-banks  among  ? 

"  Or  say  if  this  new  Birth  of  our's 
Sleep,  laid  within  some  ark  of  flowers. 
Spangled  with  deaw-light ;  thou  canst  cleere 
All  doubts,  and  manifest  the  where. 

"  Declare  to  us,  bright  star,  if  we  shall  seek 
Him  in  the  morning's  blushing  cheek, 
Or  search  the  beds  of  spices  through. 
To  find  him  out  ? " 

The  second  part  of  Sandys's  collection  contains 
an  imperfect  version  of  a  carol  of  which  we  find  a 
full  and  corrected  copy  in  Mr.  Hone's  "  Ancient 
Mysteries,"  formed  by  that  author's  collation  of 
various  copies  printed  in  different  places.  The 
beautiful  verses  which  we  quote  are  from  Hone's 
version,  and  are  wanting  in  that  of  Sandys.  The 
14 


2IO  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

ballad  begins  by  elevating  the  Virgin  Mary  to  a 
temporal  rank  which  must  rest  upon  that  particular 
authority,  and  is  probably  a  new  fact  for  our  readers  : 

"  Joseph  was  an  old  man, 
And  an  old  man  was  he, 
And  he  married  Mary, 
Queen  of  Galilee,"  — 

which,  for  a  carpenter,  was  certainly  a  distinguished 
alliance.  It  goes  on  to  describe  Joseph  and  his 
bride  walking  in  a  garden,  — 

"  Where  the  cherries  they  grew 
Upon  every  tree  ;  " 

and  upon  Joseph's  refusal,  in  somewhat  rude  lan- 
guage, to  pull  some  of  these  cherries  for  Mary,  on 
the  ground  of  her  supposed  misconduct,  — 

"  Oh  !  then  bespoke  Jesus, 

All  in  his  mother's  womb, 
'  Go  to  the  tree,  Mary, 

And  it  shall  bow  down  ; 

"  '  Go  to  the  tree,  Mary, 
And  it  shall  bow  to  thee. 
And  the  highest  branch  of  all 

Shall  bow  down  to  Mary's  knee.' " 

And  then,  after  describing  Joseph's  conviction  and 
penitence  at  this  testimony  to  Mary's  truth,  occur 
the  beautiful  verses  to  which  we  alluded  : 

"  As  Joseph  was  a  walking. 
He  heard  an  angel  sing  : 
'  This  night  shall  be  born 
Our  heavenly  king. 


SIGNS   OF    THE   SEASON. 

"  '  He  neither  shall  be  born 
In  housen  nor  in  hall, 
Nor  in  the  place  of  Paradise, 
But  in  an  ox's  stall. 

"  '  He  neither  shall  be  clothed 
In  purple  nor  in  pall, 
But  all  in  fair  linen, 
As  were  babies  all. 


" '  He  neither  shall  be  rock'd 
In  silver  nor  in  gold, 
But  in  a  wooden  cradle. 
That  rocks  on  the  mould. 


"  '  He  neither  shall  be  christen'd 
In  white  wine  nor  in  red. 
But  with  the  spring  water 

With  which  we  were  christened.' " 

The  strange,  wild  ballad  beginning,  — 

"  I  saw  three  ships  come  sailing  in, 

On  Christmas  day,  on  Christmas  day; 
I  saw  three  ships  come  sailing  in, 

On  Christmas  day  in  the  morning,"  — 

and  the  still  stranger  one  of  "  The  Holy  Well,"  we 
would  have  copied  at  length,  as  examples  of  these 
curious  relics,  if  we  could  have  spared  the  space. 
Of  the  latter,  however,  we  will  give  our  readers 
some  account,  to  show  the  singular  liberties  which 
were  taken  with  sacred  personages  and  things  in 
these  old  carols.  In  the  one  in  question,  the  boy 
Jesus,  having  asked  his  mother's  permission  to  go 


212  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

and  play,  receives  it,  accompanied  with  the  salutary- 
injunction,  — 

"  And  let  me  hear  of  no  complaint 
At  night  when  you  come  home. 

"  Sweet  Jesus  went  down  to  yonder  town, 
As  far  as  the  Holy  Well, 
And  there  did  see  as  fine  children 
As  any  tongue  can  tell." 

On    preferring,  however,  his    petition   to   these 
children,  — 

"  Little  children,  shall  I  play  with  you. 
And  you  shall  play  with  me?" 

he  is  refused  on  the  ground  of  his  having  been 
"  born  in  an  ox's  stall,"  they  being  "  lords'  and 
ladies'  sons." 

"  Sweet  Jesus  turned  him  around, 
And  he  neither  laugh'd  nor  smil'd. 
But  the  tears  came  trickling  from  his  eye 
Like  water  from  the  skies." 

Whereupon  he  returns  home  to  report  his  griev- 
ance to  his  mother,  who  answers,  — 

"  Though  you  are  but  a  maiden's  child, 
Born  in  an  ox's  stall. 
Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  King  of  Heaven, 
And  the  Saviour  of  them  all ;  " 

and  then  proceeds  to  give  him  advice  neither 
consistent  with  the  assertion  in  the  last  line,  nor 
becoming  her  character :  — 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON.  213 

"  Sweet  Jesus,  go  down  to  yonder  town, 
As  far  as  the  Holy  Well, 
And  take  away  those  sinful  souls. 
And  dip  them  deep  in  hell. 

"  Nay,  nay,  sweet  Jesus  said, 
Nay,  nay,  that  may  not  be  ; 
For  there  are  too  many  sinful  souls 
Crying  out  for  the  help  of  me." 

Both  these  latter  carols  are  given  by  Sandys  as 
amongst  those  which  are  still  popular  in  the  West 
of  England ;  and  we  remember  to  have  ourselves 
heard  them  both  many  and  many  a  time  in  its 
Northern  counties. 

We  must  give  a  single  verse  of  one  of  the  ancient 
French  provincial  noels,  for  the  purpose  of  intro- 
ducing our  readers  to  a  strange  species  of  chanted 
burden ;  and  then  we  must  stop.  It  is  directed 
to  be  sung  sur  un  chant  joyeux,  and  begins  thus  : 

"  Quand  Dieu  naquit  \  Noel, 
Dedans  la  Judee, 
On  vit  ce  jour  solemnel 

La  joie  inondee ; 
II  n'etoit  ni  petit  ni  grand 
Qui  n'apportat  son  present 
Et  n'o,  n'o,  n'o,  n'o, 
Et  n'offrit,  frit,  frit, 
Et  n'o,  n'o,  et  n'offrit, 
Et  n'offrit  sans  cesse  Toute  sa  richesse." 

Our  readers  are  no  doubt  aware  that  the  carol- 
sheets  still  make  their  annual  appearance  at  this 
season,  not    only  in   the   metropolis,  but  also   in 


214  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

Manchester,  Birmingham,  and  perhaps  other  towns. 
In  London  they  pass  into  the  hands  of  hawkers, 
who  wander  about  our  streets  and  suburbs  enforcing 
the  sale  thereof  by  —  in  addition  to  the  irresistible 
attraction  of  the  wood-cuts  with  which  they  are 
embellished  —  the  further  recommendation  of  their 
own  versions  and  variations  of  the  original  tunes, 
yelled  out  in  tones  which  could  not  be  heard  with- 
out alarm  by  any  animals  throughout  the  entire 
range  of  Nature,  except  the  domesticated  ones, 
who  are  "  broken  "  to  it.  For  ourselves,  we  confess 
that  we  are  not  thoroughly  broken  yet,  and  expe- 
rience very  uneasy  sensations  at  the  approach  of 
one  of  these  alarming  choirs. 

"  'T  is  said  that  the  lion  will  turn  and  flee 
From  a  maid  in  the  pride  of  her  purity." 

We  would  rather  meet  him  under  the  protection 
of  a  group  of  London  carol-singers.  We  would 
undertake  to  explore  the  entire  of  central  Africa, 
well  provisioned  and  in  such  company,  without  the 
slightest  apprehension,  excepting  such  as  was  sug- 
gested by  the  music  itself. 

By  these  gentry  a  very  spirited  competition  is 
kept  up  in  the  article  of  annoyance  with  the 
hurdy-gurdies,  and  other  instruments  of  that  class, 
which  awaken  the  echoes  of  all  our  streets,  and 
furnish  a  sufficient  refutation  of  the  assertion  that 
we  are  not  a  musical  nation.  We  have  heard  it 
said  that  the  atmosphere  of  London  is  highly  im- 


London  Carol  Singers.  —  Pat^e  215. 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON.  215 

pregnated  with  coal- smoke  and  barrel-organs.  The 
breath  of  ballad-singers  should  enter  into  the  ac- 
count at  this  season.  The  sketch  from  life  which 
we  have  given  of  one  of  these  groups  will  convey 
to  our  readers  a  very  lively  notion  of  the  carol- 
singers  of  London,  and  supply  them  with  a  hint 
as  to  the  condition  in  this  flourishing  metropolis  of 
that  branch  of  the  fine  arts.  Our  friends  will 
perceive  that  this  is  a  family  of  artists,  from  the 
oldest  to  the  youngest.  The  children  are  bom  to 
an  inheritance  of  song,  and  begin  to  enter  upon 
its  enjoyment  in  the  cradle.  That  infant  in  arms 
made  his  debut  before  the  pubhc  a  day  or  two  after 
he  was  bom,  and  is  already  an  accomplished  chor- 
ister ;  and  the  hopeful  boy  who  is  howling  by  his 
mother's  side  acquits  himself  as  becomes  the  heir- 
at-law  to  parents  who  have  sung  through  the  world, 
and  the  next  in  reversion  to  his  father's  fiddle. 

A  very  curious  part  of  the  business,  however,  is, 
that  these  people  actually  expect  to  get  money  for 
what  they  are  doing  !  With  the  most  perfect  good 
faith,  they  really  calculate  upon  making  a  profit  by 
their  outrages  upon  men's  feelings  !  It  is  for  the 
purpose  of  "  putting  bread  into  their  mouths  "  that 
those  mouths  are  opened  in  that  portentous  manner. 
For  ourselves,  we  have  a  strong  conviction  that  the 
spread  of  the  emigration  mania  has  been  greatly 
promoted  by  the  increase  of  ballad-singers  in  the 
land.  We  have  frequently  resolved  to  emigrate, 
on   that  account,  ourselves ;   and   if  we   could  be 


2l6  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

perfectly  certified  of  any  desirable  colony,  to  which 
no  removals  had  taken  place  from  the  class  in 
question,  we  believe  we  should  no  longer  hesitate. 
The  existence  of  that  class  is  a  grievous  public 
wrong,  and  calls  loudly  for  legislation.  We  have 
frequently  thought  that  playing  a  hurdy-gurdy  in  the 
streets  should  be  treated  as  a  capital  crime. 

Of  the  annual  sheets  and  of  such  other  carols 
as  may  be  recoverable  from  traditional  or  other 
sources,  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  more  copious 
collections  are  not  made,  by  the  lovers  of  old  cus- 
toms, ere  it  be  too  late.  Brand  speaks  of  an  hered- 
itary collection  of  ballads,  almost  as  numerous  as 
the  Pepysian  collection  at  Cambridge,  which  he 
saw,  at  Newcastle-upon-Tyne,  in  the  printing-office 
of  the  late  Mr.  Saint,  amongst  which  were  several 
carols  for  the  Christmas  season.  Hone,  in  his 
"Ancient  Mysteries,"  gives  a  fist  of  eighty-nine 
carols  in  his  possession,  all  in  present  use  (though 
likely  soon  to  become  obsolete),  and  exclusive  of 
the  modem  compositions  printed  by  religious  so- 
cieties, under  the  denomination  of  carols.  He 
furnishes  a  curious  proof  of  the  attachment  which 
the  carol-buyers  extend,  from  the  old  carols  them- 
selves, to  the  old  rude  cuts  by  which  they  are 
illustrated.  "Some  of  these,"  he  says,  "on  a  sheet 
of  Cliristmas  carols,  in  1820,  were  so  rude  in  ex- 
ecution that  I  requested  the  publisher,  Mr.  T. 
Batchelar,  of  115,  Long  Alley,  Moorfields,  to  sell 
me  the  original  blocks.     I  was  a  little  surprised  by 


SIGNS   OF    THE   SEASON.  21  7 

his  telling  me  that  he  was  afraid  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  get  any  of  the  same  kind  cut  again. 
When  I  proffered  to  get  much  better  engraved,  and 
give  them  to  him  in  exchange  for  his  old  ones,  he 
said,  '  Yes,  but  better  are  not  so  good ;  I  can  get 
better  myself.  Now  these  are  old  favorites,  and 
better  cuts  will  not  please  my  customers  so  well.' " 
We  have  before  us  several  of  the  sheets  for  the 
present  season,  issued  from  the  printing-office  and 
toy  warehouse  of  Mr.  Pitts,  in  the  Seven  Dials ; 
and  we  grieve  to  say  that,  for  the  most  part,  they 
show  a  lamentable  improvement  in  the  embellish- 
ments, and  an  equally  lamentable  falling- off  in  the 
literary  contents.  One  of  these  sheets,  however, 
which  bears  the  heading  title  of  "  Divine  Mirth," 
contains  some  of  the  old  carols,  and  is  adorned  with 
impressions  from  cuts,  rude  enough,  we  should  think, 
to  please  even  the  customers  of  Mr.  Batchelar. 

Amongst  the  musical  signs  of  the  season  we  must 
not  omit  to  place  that  once  important  gentleman, 
the  bellman,  who  was  anciently  accustomed,  as  our 
excellent  friend  Mr.  Hone  says,  at  this  time,  "  to 
make  frequent  nocturnal  rambles,  and  proclaim  all 
tidings  which  it  seemed  fitting  to  him  that  people 
should  be  awakened  out  of  their  sleep  to  hearken 
to."  From  that  ancient  collection,  "  The  Bell- 
man's Treasury,"  which  was  once  this  now  decayed 
officer's  vade-mecum,  we  shall  have  occasion  to 
extract,  here  and  there,  in  their  proper  places,  the 
announcements  by  which,  of  old,  he  broke  in  upon 


2l8  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

the  Stillness  of  the  several  nights  of  this  period.  In 
the  mean  time  our  readers  may  take  the  following 
example  of  bellman  verses,  written  by  Herrick,  and 
which  we  have  extracted  from  his  "  Hesperides  :  " 

"  From  noise  of  scare-fires  rest  ye  free, 
From  murders  Benedicitie  ; 
From  all  mischances  that  may  fright 
Your  pleasing  slumbers  in  the  night. 

"  Mercie  secure  ye  all,  and  keep 
The  goblin  from  ye  while  ye  sleep. 
Past  one  aclock,  and  almost  two. 
My  masters  all,  good  day  to  you  !  " 

The  bell  of  this  ancient  officer  may  still  be  heard, 
at  the  midnight  hour  of  Christmas  Eve  (and  per- 
haps on  other  nights),  in  the  different  parishes  of 
London,  performing  the  overture  to  a  species  of 
recitative,  in  which  he  sets  forth  (amongst  other 
things)  the  virtues  of  his  patrons  (dwelling  on  their 
liberality),  and  offers  them  all  the  good  wishes  of 
the  season.  The  printed  papers  containing  the 
matter  of  these  recitations  he  has  been  busy  circu- 
lating amongst  the  parishioners  for  some  time  ;  and, 
on  the  strength  thereof,  presents  himself  as  a  candi- 
date for  some  expression  of  their  good-will  in  re- 
turn, which,  however,  he  expects  should  be  given 
in  a  more  profitable  form.  These  papers,  like  the 
carol-sheets,  have  their  margins  adorned  with  wood- 
cuts after  Scriptural  subjects.  One  of  them  now 
lies  before  us,  and  we  grieve  to  say  that  the  quaint 
ancient  rhymes  are  therein  substituted  by  meagre 


SIGNS   OF   THE   SEASON. 


219 


modern  inventions,  and  the  wood-cuts  exhibit  a 
most  ambitious  pretension  to  be  considered  as 
specimens  of  improved  art.  There  is  a  copy  of 
Carlo  Dolce's  "  Last  Supper  "  at  the  foot. 

The  beadle  of  to-day  is  in  most  respects 
changed,  for  the  worse,  from  the  bellman  of  old. 
Still,  we  are  glad  to  hear  his  bell  —  which  sounds 
much  as  it  must  have  done  of  yore  —  lifting  up  its 
ancient  voice  amongst  its  fellows  at  this  high  and 
general  season  of  bells  and  bob-majors. 


BELL-RINGING. 


fart  Sfcouti, 
THE   CHRISTMAS    DAYS. 


rfjtt 


The  Bigh  and  Mig;lity-Eriiice,  Henry  Prmce  of  furpooLe, 
Archduke  of  StapuliaaxL4Bemarclia.,D-ake  of  Higli  and. 
"Nether  Holborn, Marquis  of  3*^01163  and  To  tterih  am.  .Co  on  L 
faJatuie  of  BloomsiioryandCIerkeawell.GreatLordof  the 
Cautons  of  Islington. KeritishTov\^o  Paddington&Eujhtslridge 

Gesta  Grayorutn. 


THE  CHRISTMAS  DAYS. 


Having  given  our  readers  an  historical  and  gen- 
eral account  of  this  ancient  festival,  and  a  particular 
explanation  of  some  of  the  principal  tokens  which, 
in  modern  times  as  of  old,  bespeak  the  coming  of 
its  more  high  and  ceremonious  days,  we  must  now 
proceed  to  furnish  them  with  a  more  peculiar  de- 
scription of  those  individual  days  themselves ;  con- 
fining ourselves,  as  nearly  as  completeness  of  view 
will  admit,  within  the  limits  which  bound  what  is, 
in  its  most  especial  and  emphatic  sense,  the  Christ- 
mas season.  In  order,  however,  to  attain  this  com- 
pleteness of  view,  it  has  been  necessary  to  allow 
ourselves  certain  points  lying  on  both  sides,  zvithout 
those  strict  boundaries ;  and  the  selection  which  we 
have  made  includes  the  two  conditions  of  giving  us 
latitude  enough  for  our  purpose,  and  keeping  rea- 
sonably close  to  the  heart  of  the  subject  at  the 
same  time.  The  reasons  for  this  particular  selec- 
tion will  more  fully  appear  in  the  accounts  which 
we  have  to  give  of  the  individual  days  on  which 


224 


THE    BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 


that  selection  has  fallen,  and  in  the  further  remarks 
which  we  have  to  make,  generally  on  that  portion 
of  the  year  which  we  place  under  the  presidency 
of 


OUR  LORD  OF  MISRULE. 


. . .  J-- 

CHRISTMAS    PRESENTS. 


ST.   THOMAS'S   DAY. 

2 1  ST  December. 


This  day.  which  is  dedicated  to  the  apostle  St. 
Thomas,  we  have  chosen  as  the  opening  of  the 
Christmas  festivities ;  because  it  is  that  on  which 
we  first  seem  to  get  positive  evidence  of  the  pres- 
ence of  the  old  gentleman,  and  see  the  spirit  of 
hospitality  and  benevolence  which  his  coming 
creates  brought  into  active  operation.  Of  the 
manner  in  which  this  spirit  exhibits  itself  in  the 
metropolis,  we  are  about  presently  to  speak ;  but 
must  previously  notice  that  in  many  of  the  rural 
districts  of  England  there  are  still  lingering  traces 
of  ancient  customs,  which  meet  at  this  particular 
point  of  time  and  under  the  sanction  of  that  same 
spirit.  These  practices,  however  various  in  their 
kinds,  are  for  the  most  part  relics  in  different 
shapes  of  the  old  mummeries,  which  we  shall  have 
to  discuss  at  length  in  the  course  of  the  present 
chapter ;  and  are  but  so  many  distinct  forms  in 
which  the  poor  man's  appeal  is  made  to  the  rich 
man's  charity,  for  a  share  in  the  good  things  of 
this  merry  festival. 

IS 


226  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

Amongst  these  ancient  customs  may  be  men- 
tioned the  practice  of  "  going  a  gooding,"  which 
exists  in  some  parts  of  Kent,  and  is  performed  by- 
women,  who  present  sprigs  of  evergreens  and 
Christmas  flowers,  and  beg  for  money  in  return. 
We  beUeve  the  term  **  going  a  gooding "  scarcely 
requires  illustration.  It  means,  simply,  going  about 
to  wish  "good  even,"  —  as,  according  to  Nare.s, 
fully  appears  from  this  passage  in  Romeo  and 
Juliet :  — 

"  Nurse.     God  ye  good  morrow,  gentlemen. 
Mercutio.    God  ye  good  den,  fair  gentlewoman.  " 

In  this  same  county,  St.  Thomas's  Day  is  like- 
wise known  by  the  name  of  "  Doleing  Day,"  on  ac- 
count of  the  distribution  of  the  bounty  of  different 
charitable  individuals.  This  word  "  dole "  is  ex- 
plained by  Nares  to  mean  "  a  share  or  lot  in  any 
thing  distributed,"  and  to  come  from  the  verb  to 
deal.     He  quotes  Shakspeare  for  this  also :  — 

"  It  was  your  presurmise 
That  in  the  dole  of  blows  your  son  might  drop." 

The  musical  procession  known  in  the  Isle  of 
Thanet  and  other  parts  of  the  same  county  by  the 
name  of  "  hodening "  (supposed  by  some,  to  be 
an  ancient  relic  of  a  festival  ordained  to  commem- 
orate the  landing  of  our  Saxon  ancestors  in  that 
island,  and  which,  in  its  form,  is  neither  more  nor 
less  than  a  modification  of  the  old  practice  of  the 


ST.   THOMAS  S   DAY.  227 

"hobby  horse  "),  is  to  this  day  another  of  the  cus- 
toms of  this  particular  period. 

A  custom  analogous  to  these  is  still  to  be  traced 
in  Warwickshire  ;  throughout  which  county  it  seems 
to  have  been  the  practice  of  the  poor  to  go  from 
door  to  door  of  every  house  "  with  a  bag  to  beg 
corn  of  the  farmers,  which  they  call  going  a  corn- 
ing." And  in  Herefordshire  a  similar  custom  ex- 
ists, where  this  day  is  called  "Mumping  Day," 
that  is,  begging  day. 

To  the  same  spirit  we  owe  the  Hagmena  or 
Hogmanay  practice,  still  in  use  in  Scotland,  as  well 
as  that  of  the  Wren  Boys  in  Ireland,  both  of  which 
will  be  described  hereafter,  although  their  observ- 
ance belongs  to  later  days  of  the  season,  and 
probably  many  others  which  will  variously  suggest 
themselves  to  our  various  readers  as  existing  in 
their  several  neighborhoods. 

In  the  great  metropolis  of  England,  where 
poverty  and  wretchedness  exist  in  masses  upon 
which  private  benevolence  cannot  efficiently  act, 
and  where  imposture  assumes  their  forms  in  a 
degree  that  baiifles  the  charity  of  individuals,  the 
bequests  of  our  ancestors  have  been  to  a  great  ex- 
tent placed  for  distribution  in  the  hands  of  the 
various  parish  authorities.  St.  Thomas's  Day  in 
London  therefore  is  connected  with  these  chari- 
ties, by  its  being  that  on  which  some  of  the  most 
important  parochial  proceedings  take  place ;  and 
amongst  these  are  the  wardmotes,  held  on  this  day 


228  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

for  the  election,  by  the  freemen  inhabitant  house- 
holders, of  the  members  of  the  Common  Council, 
and  other  officers  of  the  respective  city  wards. 

The  civil  government  of  the  City  of  London  is 
said  to  bear  a  general  resemblance  to  the  legisla- 
tive power  of  the  empire ;  the  Lord  Mayor  exer- 
cising the  functions  of  monarchy,  the  Aldermen 
those  of  the  peerage,  and  the  Common  Council 
those  of  the  legislature.  The  principal  difference 
is,  that  the  Lord  Mayor  himself  has  no  negative. 
The  laws  for  the  internal  regulation  of  the  city  are 
wholly  framed  by  these  officers  acting  in  conunon 
council.  A  Common-Councilman  is,  therefore,  a 
personage  of  no  mean  importance. 

Loving  Christmas  and  its  ceremonies  with  anti- 
quarian veneration,  we  must  profess  likewise  our 
profound  respect  for  wards  of  such  high  sounding 
names  as  Dowgate,  and  Candlewick,  and  Cripple- 
gate,  and  Vintry,  and  Portsoken  ;  the  last  of  which, 
be  it  spoken  with  due  courtesy,  has  always  re- 
minded us  of  an  alderman's  nose ;  and  for  such 
distinguished  callings  as  those  of  Cordwainers,  and 
Lorimers,  and  Feltmakers,  and  Fishmongers,  and 
Plasterers,  and  Vintners,  and  Barbers ;  each  of 
whom  we  behold  in  perspective  transformed  into 
what  Theodore  Hook  calls  "a  splendid  annual," 
cr  in  less  figurative  language,  Lord  Mayor  of  Lon- 
don I  There  is  a  pantomimic  magic  in  the  word 
since  the  memorable  days  of  Whittington.  But  to 
our  theme.  — 


ST.   THOMAS  S   DAY.  229 

Pepys,  the  gossipping  secretary  of  the  Admiralty, 
records  in  his  curious  diary  his  having  gone  on 
St.  Thomas's  Day  (21st  December),  1663,  "to 
Shoe  Lane  to  see  a  cocke-fighting  at  the  new  pit 
there,  a  spot,"  he  adds,  "  I  was  never  at  in  my 
hfe  :  but,  Lord  !  to  see  the  strange  variety  of  peo- 
ple, from  parliatnent-man  (by  name  Wildes,  that 
was  deputy  governor  of  the  Tower  when  Robinson 
was  Lord  Mayor)  to  the  poorest  'prentices,  bakers, 
brewers,  butchers,  draymen,  and  what  not ;  and  all 
these  fellows  one  with  another  cursing  and  betting. 
I  soon  had  enough  of  it.  It  is  strange  to  see  how 
people  of  this  poor  rank,  that  look  as  if  they  had 
not  bread  to  put  into  their  mouths,  shall  bet  three 
or  four  pounds  at  a  time  and  lose  it,  and  yet  as 
much  the  next  battle,  so  that  one  of  them  will  lose 
;^io  or  ;^20  at  a  meeting." 

Now  the  cock-fighting  of  our  times,  under  the 
immediate  patronage  of  Saint  Thomas,  and  those 
of  Pepys's  differ  little  except  in  the  character  of 
the  combatants.  In  his  (comparatively  speaking) 
barbarous  days,  it  was  sufficient  to  pit  two  birds,  one 
against  the  other,  to  excite  the  public  or  amuse  the 
spectators.  But  a  purer  taste  prevails  among  the 
present  citizens  of  London  ;  for  our  modern  "  fight- 
ing-cocks," as  the  candidates  for  civic  honors  are 
called,  seem  on  this  day  to  be  fully  occupied  with 
the  morning  exhibition  of  their  own  foul  tongues, 
—  and  bets  often  run  as  high  as  parties,  on  these 
occasions. 


230  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

"Saint  Thomas's  birds"  —  another  name  for 
these  civic  fighting-cocks  —  have  been  trained  in 
various  ale-house  associations,  such  as  the  "Ancient 
and  honorable  Lumber  Troop,"  the  venerable  "  So- 
ciety of  Codgers,"  "the  free  and  easy  Johns,"  the 
"Councillors  under  the  Cauliflower,"  and  other 
well-known  clubs,  —  where  politics,  foreign  and  do- 
mestic, night  after  night  are  discussed,  and  mingle 
with  the  smoke  of  tobacco,  inhaled  through  re- 
spectable clay  pipes  and  washed  down  with  nips 
of  amber  ale,  or  quarts  of  frothy- headed  porter. 
Indeed  the  qualification  for  admission  into  the 
Lumber  Troop  is,  we  have  been  told,  the  power  of 
consuming  a  quart  of  porter  at  a  draught,  without 
once  pausing  to  draw  a  breath,  — which  feat  must  be 
performed  before  that  august  assembly.  We  once 
visited  the  head-quarters  of  this  porter-quaffing 
troop,  and  found  the  house,  with  some  difficulty, 
near  Gough  Square,  —  which  lies  in  that  intricate 
region  between  Holborn  Hill  and  Fleet  Street.  It 
was  a  corner  house,  and  an  inscription  upon  the 
wall,  in  letters  of  gold,  informed  the  passer-by  that 
this  was  the  place  of  meeting  of  the  Lumber  Troop. 
The  room  in  which  they  met  is  small,  dark,  and 
ancient  in  appearance,  with  an  old-fashioned  chim- 
ney-piece in  the  centre,  and  a  dais  or  raised  floor 
at  one  end,  where,  we  presume,  the  officers  of  the 
troop  take  their  seats.  Above  their  heads,  upon  a 
shelf,  some  small  brass  cannon  were  placed  as  orna- 
ments, and  the  walls  of  the  room  were  decorated 


ST.    THOMAS  S   DAY.  23 1 

with  the  portraits  of  distinguished  troopers,  — 
among  whom  Mr.  Alderman  Wood,  in  a  scarlet 
robe,  and  Mr.  Richard  Taylor  were  pointed  out  to 
our  notice.  Over  the  fire-place  hung  the  portrait 
of  an  old  gentleman,  in  the  warlike  costume  of 
Cromwell's  time,  who  was,  probably, 

"  Some  Fleet  Street  Hampden." 

The  obscurity  which  conceals  the  origin  of  many 
interesting  and  important  institutions  hangs  over 
the  early  history  of  the  Lumber  Troop.  Tradition 
asserts  that,  when  Henry  VIII.  went  to  the  siege  of 
Boulogne,  he  drained  the  country  of  all  its  soldiers  ; 
and  the  citizens  of  London  who  remained  behind, 
inspired  with  martial  ardor,  formed  themselves  into 
a  troop,  for  the  protection  of  old  England.  In  the 
grotesque  and  gouty  appearance  of  these  troopers, 
their  name  of  the  Lumber  Troop  is  said  to  have 
originated.  Their  field  days,  as  may  be  expected, 
were  exhibitions  of  merriment ;  and  their  guards 
and  midnight  watches  scenes  of  feasting  and  revelry. 
The  "  Lumber-pye  "  was  formerly  a  dish  in  much 
repute,  being  composed  of  high-seasoned  meats 
and  savory  ingredients,  for  the  preparation  of 
which  receipts  may  be  found  in  the  old  cookery 
books.  Recently,  it  has  been  corrupted  into  Lom- 
bard Pie,  on  account,  as  is  said,  of  its  Italian  origin, 
— but  we  profess  allegiance  to  the  more  ancient 
name. 


232  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

Let  those  who  hold  lightly  the  dignity  of  a  Lum- 
ber Trooper,  and  who  perhaps  have  smiled  at  the 
details  here  given,  inquire  of  the  representatives 
of  the  city  of  London  in  the  parliament  of  England, 
their  opinion  of  the  matter.  We  have  been  assured 
that  these  jolly  troopers  influence  every  city  election 
to  such  an  extent  that,  \vithout  an  understanding 
with  these  worthies,  no  candidate  can  have  a  chance 
of  success.  In  the  same  way,  the  codgers,  in  Cod- 
ger's Hall,  Bride  Lane  (said  to  have  been  insti- 
tuted in  1756,  by  some  of  the  people  of  the  Inner 
Temple,  who  imagined  their  free  thoughts  and  pro- 
found cogitations  worthy  of  attention,  and  charged 
half-a-crown  for  the  entrke),  and  other  ale-house 
clubs,  exert  their  more  limited  power.  Hone,  in 
his  Every-Day  Book,  observes  that  "  these  societies 
are  under  currents  that  set  in  strong,  and  often 
turn  the  tide  of  an  election  in  favor  of  some  '  good 
fellow,'  who  is  good  nowhere  but  in  '  sot's-hole.' " 
And  he  adds,  commenting  upon  St.  Thomas's  Day, 
"  Now  the  *  gentlemen  of  the  inquest,'  chosen  *  at 
the  church '  in  the  morning,  dine  together,  as  the 
first  important  duty  of  their  office  ;  and  the  re-elected 
ward-beadles  are  busy  with  the  fresh  chosen  con- 
stables ;  and  the  watchmen  [this  was  before  the 
days  of  the  police]  are  particularly  civil  to  every 
'  drunken  gentleman '  who  happens  to  look  like  one 
of  the  new  authorities.  And  now  the  bellman,  who 
revives  the  history  and  poetry  of  his  predecessors, 
will  vociferate  — 


ST.    THOMAS  S    DAY.  233 

"  '  My  masters  all,  this  is  St.  Thomas'-day, 
And  Christmas  now  can  't  be  far  off,  you  '11  say. 
And  when  you  to  the  Ward-motes  do  repair, 
I  hope  such  good  men  will  be  chosen  there, 
As  constables  for  the  ensuing  year, 
As  will  not  grudge  the  watchmen  good  strong  beer.' " 

The  illustration  of  this  part  of  our  subject  which 
our  artist  has  given,  exhibits  the  scene  of  one  of 
these  parish  elections ;  and  includes,  in  the  distance, 
a  vision  of  those  good  things  to  which  all  business 
matters  in  England  —  and  above  all,  in  its  eastern 
metropolitan  city  —  are  but  prefaces. 

We  may  observe,  here,  that  St.  Thomas's  Day  is 
commonly  called  the  shortest  of  the  year,  although 
the  difference  between  its  length  and  that  of  the 
twenty-second  is  not  perceptible.  The  hours  of 
the  sun's  rising  and  setting,  on  each  of  those  days, 
are  marked  as  the  same  in  our  calendars,  and 
the  latter  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  shortest 
day. 


As  the  days  which  intervene  between  this  and 
the  Eve  of  Christmas  are  distinguished  by  no  spe- 
cial ceremonial  of  their  own,  and  as  the  numerous 
observances  attached  to  several  of  the  particular 
days  which  follow  will  sufficiently  prolong  those 
parts  of  our  subject,  we  will  take  this  opportunity 
of  alluding  to  some  of  the  sports  and  festivities 
not  peculiar  to  any  one  day,  but  extending  more 
or  less  generally  over  the  entire  season. 


234  THE   BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

Burton  in  his  "  Anatomy  of  Melancholy  "  men- 
tions, as  the  winter  amusements  of  his  day, "  Gardes, 
tables  and  dice,  shovelboard,  chesse-play,  the  phi- 
losopher's game,  small  trunkes,  shuttlecocke,  bill- 
iards, musicke,  masks,  singing,  dancing,  ule-games, 
frolicks,  jests,  riddles,  catches,  purposes,  questions 
and  commands,  merry  tales  of  errant  knights, 
queenes,  lovers,  lords,  ladies,  giants,  dwarfes, 
theeves,  cheaters,  witches,  fayries,  goblins,  fri- 
ers," &c.  Amongst  the  list  of  Christmas  sports,  we 
elsewhere  find  mention  of  "jugglers,  and  jack- 
puddings,  scrambhng  for  nuts  and  apples,  dancing 
the  hobby-horse,  hunting  owls  and  squirrels,  the 
fool-plough,  hot-cockles,  a  stick  moving  on  a  pivot 
with  an  apple  at  one  end  and  a  candle  at  the  other, 
so  that  he  who  missed  his  bite  burned  his  nose, 
bhndman's  buff,  forfeits,  interludes  and  mock 
plays :  "  also  of  "  thread  my  needle.  Nan,"  "  he 
can  do  Uttle  that  can't  do  this,"  feed  the  dove, 
hunt  the  slipper,  shoeing  the  wild  mare,  post  and 
pair,  snap-dragon,  the  gathering  of  omens,  and  a 
great  variety  of  others.  In  this  long  enumeration, 
our  readers  will  recognize  many  which  have  come 
down  to  the  present  day,  and  form  still  the  amuse- 
ment of  their  winter  evenings  at  the  Christmas-tide, 
or  on  the  merry  night  of  Halloween.  For  an  ac- 
count of  many  of  those  which  are  no  longer  to  be 
found  in  the  list  of  hohday  games,  we  must  refer 
such  of  our  readers  as  it  may  interest  to  Brand's 
"  Popular     Antiquities,"     and     Strutt's     "  English 


ST.    THOMAS  S    DAY.  235 

Sports."  A  description  of  them  would  be  out  of 
place  in  this  volume ;  and  we  have  mentioned 
them  only  as  confirming  a  remark  which  we  have 
elsewhere  made ;  viz.,  that  in  addition  to  such 
recreations  as  arise  out  of  the  season  or  belong 
to  it  in  a  special  sense,  whatever  other  games  or 
amusements  have  at  any  time  been  of  popular  use, 
have  generally  inserted  themselves  into  this  length- 
ened and  joyous  festival ;  and  that  all  the  forms 
in  which  mirth  or  happiness  habitually  sought  ex- 
pression congregated  from  all  quarters  at  the  ring- 
ing of  the  Christmas  bells. 

To  the  Tregetours,  or  jugglers,  v/ho  anciently 
made  mirth  at  the  Christmas  fireside,  there  are 
several  allusions  in  Chaucer's  tales  ;  and  Aubrey, 
in  reference  thereto,  mentions  some  of  the  tricks 
by  which  they  contributed  to  the  entertainments 
of  the  season.  The  exhibitions  of  such  gentry  in 
modem  times  are  generally  of  a  more  public  kind, 
and  it  is  rarely  that  they  find  their  way  to  our  fire- 
sides. But  we  have  still  the  galantee-showman 
wandering  up  and  down  our  streets  and  squares, 
with  his  musical  prelude  and  tempting  anounce- 
ment  sounding  through  the  sharp  evening  air,  and 
summoned  into  our  warm  rooms  to  display  the 
shadowy  marvels  of  his  mysterious  box  to  the  young 
group,  who  gaze  in  great  wonder  and  some  awe  from 
their  inspiring  places  by  the  cheerful  hearth. 

Not  that  our  firesides  are  altogether  without 
domestic  fortune-tellers  or  amateur  practitioners  in 


236  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

the  art  of  sleight-of-hand.  But  the  prophecies  of 
the  former  are  drawn  from,  and  the  feats  of  the 
other  performed  with  the  cards.  Indeed  we  must 
not  omit  to  particularize  cards  as  furnishing  in  all 
their  uses  one  of  the  great  resources  at  this  season 
of  long  evenings  and  in-door  amusements,  as  they . 
appear  also  to  have  formed  an  express  feature  of 
the  Christmas  entertainments  of  all  ranks  of  people 
in  old  times.  We  are  told  that  the  squire  of  three 
hundred  a-year  in  Queen  Anne's  time  "never 
played  at  cards  but  at  Christmas,  when  the  family 
pack  was  produced  from  the  mantel-piece ; "  and 
Stevenson,  an  old  writer  of  Charles  the  Second's 
time,  in  an  enumeration  of  the  preparations  making 
for  the  mirth  of  the  season,  tells  us  that  "  the  coun- 
try-maid leaves  half  her  market  and  must  be  sent 
again,  if  she  forgets  a  pack  of  cards  on  Christmas 
Eve."  And  who  of  us  all  has  not  shared  in  the 
uproarious  mirth  which  young  and  unclouded  spirits 
find,  amid  the  intrigues  and  speculations  of  a  round 
game  !  To  the  over-scrupulous  on  religious  grounds, 
who,  looking  upon  cards  as  the  "  devil's  books,"  and 
to  the  moral  alarmist  who,  considering  card- playing 
to  be  in  itself  gaming,  would  each  object  to  this 
species  of  recreation  for  the  young  and  innocent, 
it  may  be  interesting  to  know  that  the  practice  has 
been  defended  by  that  bishop  of  bishops,  Jeremy 
Taylor  himself,  and  that  he  insists  upon  no  argu- 
ment against  the  innocence  of  a  practice  being  in- 
ferred from  its  abuse. 


ST.    THOMAS  S   DAY.  237 

We  have  before  alluded  to  the  bards  and  harpers 
who  assembled  in  ancient  days  at  this  time  of  was- 
sail, making  the  old  halls  to  echo  to  the  voice  of 
music,  and  stirring  the  blood  with  the  legends  of 
chivalry  or  chilling  it  with  the  wizard  tale.  And 
the  tale  and  the  song  are  amongst  the  spirits  that 
wait  on  Christmas  still,  and  charm  the  long  winter 
evenings  with  their  yet  undiminished  spells.  Many 
a  Christmas  evening  has  flown  over  our  heads  on 
the  wings  of  music,  sweeter,  far  sweeter,  dearer,  a 
thousand  times  dearer,  than  ever  was  played  by 
wandering  minstrel  or  uttered  by  stipendiary  bard  ; 
and  we  have  formed  a  portion  of  happy  groups, 
when  some  thrilling  story  has  sent  a  chain  of  sym- 
pathetic feeling  through  hearts  that  shall  beat  in 
unison  no  more,  and  tales  of  the  grave  and  its 
tenants  have  sent  a  paleness  into  cheeks  that  the 
grave  itself  hath  since  made  paler  still. 

The  winter  hearth  is  the  very  land  of  gossip- 
red.  There  it  is  that  superstition  loves  to  tell  her 
marvels,  and  curiosity  to  gather  them.  The  gloom 
and  desolation  without,  with  the  wild,  unearthly 
voice  of  the  blast,  as  it  sweeps  over  a  waste  of 
snows  and  cuts  sharp  against  the  leafless  branches, 
or  the  wan  sepulchral  light  that  shows  the  dreary 
earth  as  it  were  covered  with  a  pall,  and  the  trees 
like  spectres  rising  from  beneath  it,  alike  send 
men  huddling  round  the  blazing  fire,  and  awaken 
those  impressions  of  the  wild  and  shadowy  and 
unsubstantial,  to  which  tales  of  marvel  or  of  terror 


238  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

are  such  welcome  food.  But  other  inspirations  are 
born  of  the  blaze  itself;  and  the  jest  and  the  laugh 
and  the  merry  narration  are  of  the  spirits  that  are 
raised  within  the  magic  circles  that  surround  it. 

'  They  should  have  drawn  thee  by  the  high  heap't  hearth, 

Old  Winter  !  seated  in  thy  great  armed-chair, 
Watching  the  children  at  their  Christmas  mirth  ; 

Or  circled  by  them,  as  thy  lips  declare 
Some  merry  jest,  or  tale  of  murder  dire, 

Or  troubled  spirit  that  disturbs  the  night ; 
Pausing  at  times  to  move  the  languid  fire, 

Or  taste  the  old  October,  brown  and  bright." 

The  song  and  the  story,  the  recitation  and  the 
book  read  aloud  are,  in  town  and  in  village,  man- 
sion and  farmhouse,  amongst  the  universal  resources 
of  the  winter  nights  now,  as  they  or  their  equiva- 
lents have  at  all  times  been.  The  narratives  of  •'  old 
adventures,  and  valiaunces  of  noble  knights,  in 
times  past,"  the  stories  of  Sir  Bevys  of  Southamp- 
ton and  Sir  Guy  of  Warwick,  of  Adam  Bell, 
Clymme  of  the  Clough,  and  William  of  Cloudesley, 
with  other  ancient  romances  or  historical  rhymes, 
which  formed  the  recreation  of  the  common  people 
at  their  Christmas  dinners  and  bride-ales  long  ago, 
may  iiave  made  way  for  the  wild  legend  of  the  sea, 
or  fearful  anecdote  — 

"  Of  horrid  apparition,  tall  and  ghastly, 
That  walks  at  dead  of  night,  or  takes  its  stand 
O'er  some  new  opened  grave,  and,  strange  to  tell, 
Evanishes  at  crowing  of  the  cock ;  " 


ST.  Thomas's  day.  239 

and  for  the  more  touching  ballads  which  sing  of  the 
late  repentance  of  the  cruel  Barbara  Allan,  — 

"  O  mither,  mither,  mak  my  bed, 

0  mak  it  saft  and  narrow; 
Since  my  love  died  for  me  to-day, 

1  '11  die  for  him  to  morrow ;  " 

or  how  the 

"  Pretty  babes,  with  hand  in  hand, 
Went  wandering  up  and  down  ; 
But  never  more  could  see  the  man 
Returning  from  the  town  ;  " 

or  how  "  there  came  a  ghost  to  Margaret's  door," 
and  chilled  the  life-blood  in  her  veins,  by  his  awful 
announcement,  — 

"  My  bones  are  buried  in  a  kirk-yard. 
Afar  beyond  the  sea  ; 
And  it  is  but  my  sprite,  Marg'ret, 
That 's  speaking  now  to  thee  ;  " 

or  may  have  been  replaced,  in  higher  quarters,  by 
the  improved  narrative  literature  of  the  present  day, 
and  the  traditions  or  memories  which  haunt  all 
homes.  But  the  spirit  of  the  entertainment  itself 
is  still  the  same,  varied  only  by  circumstances  in  its 
forms. 

It  is  apparently  by  a  group  of  the  latter  kind 
that  this  branch  of  the  Christmas  amusements  is 
illustrated  in  the  plate.  The  youthful  members  of 
a  family  are  listening,  in  all  probability,  to  some 
tale  of  their  sires,  related  by  the  withered  crone, 
who,  grown  old  in  that  service,  links   those  young 


240  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

beings  with  a  generation  gone  by,  and  stands,  as 
it  were,  prophesying  "  betwixt  the  living  and  the 
dead."  If  we  may  judge  from  the  aspect  of  the 
aged  sybil  herself,  and  the  pale  and  earnest  faces 
that  surround  her,  the  narrative  which  she  is  impart- 
ing is  one  of  the  fearful  class,  and  not  to  be  listened 
to  beyond  the  cheering  inspirations  of  that  bright 
fire ;  although  the  moving  shadows  which  it  flings 
upon  the  old  walls  are  amongst  the  terrors  which  are 
born  of  her  story.  For  the  scene  of  these  emo- 
tions, the  artist  has  chosen,  as  artists  still  love  to  do, 
the  chamber  of  an  ancient  mansion,  with  its  huge 
chimney  and  oriel-window.  And  it  may  be  that 
for  picturesque  effects  which  are  to  address  them- 
selves to  the  eye,  artists  are  right  in  so  doing.  No 
doubt,  the  high  chronicles  of  chivalry,  and  the 
mysterious  traditions  of  the  past,  comport  well  with 
the  gloom  of  the  gothic  gallery ;  —  and,  certainly, 
the  long  rambling  passages  of  an  old  house  afford 
at  once  room  for  the  wandering  of  ghosts,  and  that 
dim,  shadowy  light  by  which  imagination  sees  them 
best.  But  the  true  poetry  of  Hfe  is  not  confined 
to  ancient  dwellings ;  and  every  house,  in  every 
crowded  thoroughfare  of  every  city,  has  its  own 
tales  to  tell  around  the  Christmas  fire.  The  most 
pert-looking  dwelling  of  them  all,  that  may  seem 
as  if  it  were  forever  staring  out  of  its  sash  win- 
dows into  the  street,  has  its  own  mysteries, 
and  is,  if  it  have  been  tenanted  sufficiently  long, 
as  closely  haunted  by  recollections  as  the  baron's 


ST.    THOMAS  S   DAY.  24I 

castle,  or  the  squire's  old  manor-house.  I>ike 
them,  — 

"  Its  stones  have  voices,  and  its  walls  do  live  ; 
It  is  the  house  of  memory  !  " 

Within  its  neat  parlors  and  light  saloons,  the  lyre 
of  human  passions  has  been  struck  on  all  its  chords. 
Birth  and  death,  marriage  and  separation,  joy  and 
grief,  in  all  their  familiar  forms,  have  knocked  at  its 
painted  door,  and  crossed  its  narrow  threshold ; 
and  the  hearts  within  have  their  own  traditions  of 
the  past,  and  their  own  reckonings  to  take,  and 
their  own  anecdotes  to  revise,  and  their  own  ghosts 
to  bring  back,  amid  the  commemorations  of  this 
festal  time. 

And  —  whatever  may  be  said  for  the  ancient 
ghost  stories,  which  are  fast  losing  ground  —  fitting 
it  is  that,  amid  the  mirth  ot  this  pleasant  time,  such 
thoughts  should  be  occasionally  stirred,  and  those 
phantoms  of  the  heart  brought  back.  Not  that  the 
joy  of  the  young  and  hopeful  should  be  thereby 
darkened,  but  that  they  may  be  duly  warned  that 
"  youth  's  a  stuff  will  not  endure,"  and  taught  in 
time  the  tenure  upon  which  hope  is  held.  That 
was  a  beautiful  custom  of  the  Jews  which  led  them, 
when  they  built  houses,  to  leave  ever  some  part 
unfinished,  as  a  memento  of  the  ruin  and  desolation 
of  their  city.  Not  that  they,  therefore,  built  the 
less,  or  the  less  cheerfully  ;  but  that  in  the  very  midst 
of  their  amplest  accommodations  they  preserved  a 
16 


242  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

perpetual  and  salutary  reference  to  the  evil  of  their 
condition,  —  a  useful  check  upon  their  worldly 
thoughts.  And  thus  should  mirth  be  welcomed  and 
hopes  built  up,  wherever  the  materials  present 
themselves ;  but  a  mark  should,  notwithstanding,  be 
placed  upon  the  brightest  of  them  all,  remem- 
brances ever  let  in,  which  may  recall  to  us  the 
imperfect  condition  of  our  nature  here,  and  speak 
of  the  certain  decay  which  must  attend  all  hopes 
erected  for  mere  earthly  dwellings. 

But  thou  shouldst  speak  of  this,  thou  for  whom 
the  following  lines  were  written  long  ago,  though 
they  have  not  yet  met  thine  eye,  thou  who  hast 
learnt  this  lesson  more  sternly  than  even  I,  and 
speakest  so  well  of  all  things  !  Many  a  "  Winter's 
Tale"  have  we  two  read  together  (Shakspeare's 
among  the  rest  —  and  how  often!),  and  many  a 
written  lay  has  linked  our  thoughts  in  a  sympathy 
of  sentiment,  on  many  an  evening  of  Christmas. 
It  may  be  that  on  some  night  of  that  which  is  ap 
preaching,  these  lines  may  meet  thy  notice,  and 
through  them,  ove  more  winter's  eve  may  yet  be 
spent  by  thee  and  me,  in  a  communion  of  thought 
and  feeling.  No  fear  that  joy  should  carry  it  all, 
with  us  !  No  danger  that  the  ghosts  of  the  past 
should  fail  to  mingle  with  our  Christmas  feelings, 
in  that  hour  !  There  can  be  no  future  hope  built 
up  for  thee  or  me,  or  for  most  others  who  have 
passed  the  first  season  of  youth,  to  which  some- 
thing shall  not   be  wanting;   which  shall  not,  like 


ST.   THOMAS'S   DAY.  243 

the  houses  of  the  Jews,  be  left  imperfect  in  some 
part ;  and  for  the  same  reason,  —  even  for  the  mem- 
ories of  the  ruined  past  1 

Farewell !  I  do  not  bid  thee  weep  ; 

The  hoarded  love  of  many  years. 

The  visions  hearts  like  thine  must  keep, 

May  not  be  told  by  tears  ! 

No  !  tears  are  but  the  spirit's  showers, 

To  wash  its  lighter  clouds  away, 

In  breasts  where  sun-bows,  like  the  flowers, 

Are  born  of  rain  and  ray ; 

But  gone  from  thine  is  all  the  glow 

That  helped  to  form  life's  promise-bow ! 

Farewell !  I  know  that  never  more 
Thy  spirit,  like  the  bird  of  day. 
Upon  its  own  sweet  song  shall  soar 
Along  a  sunny  way ! 
The  hour  that  wakes  the  waterfall 
To  music,  in  its  far-off  flight, 
-   And  hears  the  silver  fountains  call. 
Like  angels  through  the  night, 
Shall  bring  thee  songs  whose  tones  are  sighs 
From  harps  whose  chords  are  memories ! 

Night !  when,  like  perfumes  that  have  slept, 

All  day,  within  the  wild-flower's  heart. 

Steal  out  the  thoughts  the  soul  has  kept 

In  silence  and  apart ; 

And  voices  we  have  pined  to  hear. 

Through  many  a  long  and  lonely  day, 

Come  back  upon  the  dreaming  ear, 

From  grave-lands,  far  away ; 

And  gleams  look  forth,  of  spirit-eyes. 

Like  stars  along  the  darkening  skies  I 


244  THE   BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

When  fancy  and  the  lark  are  still  — 
Those  riders  of  the  morning  gale  ! 
And  walks  the  moon  o'er  vale  and  bill 
With  memory  and  the  nightingale  ; 
The  moon  that  is  the  daylight's  ghost 
(As  memon,'  is  the  ghost  of  hope), 
And  holds  a  lamp  to  all  things  lost 
Beneath  night's  solemn  cope. 
Pale  as  the  light  by  memory  led 
Along  the  cities  of  the  dead  ! 

Alas,  for  thee  !  alas  for  thine ! 
Thy  youth  that  is  no  longer  young ! 
Whose  heart,  like  Delphi's  ruined  shrine, 
Gives  oracles — oh  !  still  divine  !  — 
But  never  more  in  song ! 
Whose  breast,  like  Echo's  haunted  hall, 
Is  filled  with  murmurs  of  the  past. 
Ere  yet  its  "  gold  was  dim,"  and  all 
Its  "  pleasant  thmgs  "  laid  waste  ! 
From  whose  sweet  windows  never  more 
Shall  look  the  sunny  soul  of  yore ! 

Farewell !  I  do  not  bid  thee  weep, 

The  smile  and  tear  are  past  for  thee ; 

The  river  of  thy  thoughts  must  keep 

Its  solemn  course,  too  still  and  deep 

For  idle  eyes  to  see  ! 

Oh !  earthly  things  are  all  too  far 

To  throw  their  shadows  o'er  its  stream  ! 

But,  now  and  then,  a  silver  star. 

And,  now  and  then,  a  gleam 

Of  glory  from  the  skies  be  given. 

To  light  its  waves  with  dreams  of  heaven ! 

To  the  out-door  sports  of  this  merry  time  which 
arise  out  of  the  natural  phenomena  of  the  season 
itself,  we  need  do  no  more  than  allude  here,  because 


ST.    THOMAS  S    DAY.  245 

every  school-boy  knows  far  more  about  them  than 
we  are  now  able  to  tell  him,  though  we  too  reckoned 
them  all  amidst  the  dehghts  of  our  boyhood.     The 
rapid  motions  and  graceful  manoeuvres  of  the  skil- 
ful amongst  the  skaters,  the  active  games  connected 
with  this  exercise  (such  as  the  Golf  of  our  northern 
neighbors,  not  very  commonly  practised  in  England), 
the  merry  accidents  of  the  sliders,  and  the  loud  and 
mischievous  laugh  of  the  joyous  groups  of  snow- 
ballers,  —  are  all  amongst  the  picturesque  features 
by  which  the  Christmas  time  is  commonly  marked 
in  these  islands.     To  be  sure,  the  kind  of  seasons 
seems  altogether  to  have  abandoned  us  in  which 
the  ice  furnished  a  field  for  those  diversions  during 
a  period  of  six  weeks  ;  and  the  days  are  gone  when 
fairs  were  held  on  the  broad  Thames,  and  books 
were  printed  and  medals  struck  on  the  very  pathway 
of  his  fierce  and  daily  tides.     Even  now  as  we  write 
however,  in  this  present  year  of  grace,  old  Winter 
stands  without  the  door  in  something  like  the  garb 
in  which  as  boys  we  loved  him  best,  and  that  old 
aspect  of  which  we  have  such  pleasant  memories, 
and  which  Cowper  has  so  well  described : 

"  O  Winter !  ruler  of  the  inverted  year ! 
Thy  scattered  hair  with  sleet-like  ashes  filled; 
Thy  breath  congealed  upon  thy  lips  ;  thy  cheeks 
Fringed  with  a  beard  made  white  with  other  snows 
Than  those  of  age  ;  thy  forehead  wrapt  in  clouds ; 
A  leafless  branch  thy  sceptre  ;  and  thy  throne 
A  sliding  car  indebted  to  no  wheels, 
But  urged  by  storms  along  thy  slippery  way !  " 


246  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

In  looking  over  a  description  of  London  we 
have  met  with  a  quotation  of  a  passage  from  Fitz- 
Stephen,  an  old  historian  of  that  city,  in  which  he 
gives  a  quaint  description  of  these  familiar  sports, 
as  they  were  practised  in  King  Henry  the  Second's 
day  on  the  large  pond  or  marsh  which  then  occupied 
the  site  of  what  is  now  Moorfields.  The  passage  is 
short  and  we  will  quote  it. 

"  When  that  vast  lake,"  he  says,  "  which  waters 
the  walls  of  the  city  towards  the  north  is  hard 
frozen,  the  youth  in  great  numbers  go  and  divert 
themselves  on  the  ice.  Some,  taking  a  small  run  for 
increment  of  velocity,  place  their  feet  at  a  proper 
distance  and  are  carried  sliding  sideways  a  great 
way.  Others  will  make  a  large  cake  of  ice,  and 
seating  one  of  their  companions  upon  it,  they  take 
hold  of  one  another's  hands  and  draw  him  along ; 
when  it  happens  that,  moving  so  swiftly  on  so  slip- 
pery a  place,  they  all  fall  headlong.  Others  there 
are  who  are  still  more  expert  in  these  amuse- 
ments on  the  ice ;  they  place  certain  bones,  the  leg 
bones  of  animals,  under  the  soles  of  their  feet  by 
tying  them  round  their  ankles,  and  then,  taking  a 
pole  shod  with  iron  into  their  hands,  they  push 
themselves  forward  by  striking  it  against  the  ice, 
and  are  carried  on  with  a  velocity  equal  to  the  flight 
of  a  bird  or  a  bolt  discharged  from  a  cross-bow." 

But  amongst  all  the  amusements  which  in  cities 
contribute  to  make  the  Christmas  time  a  period  of 
enchantments  for   the   young  and   happy,  there  is 


ST.    THOMAS  S    DAY.  247 

another,  which  must  not  be  passed  over  without  a 
word  of  special  notice  ;  and  that  one  is  the  theatre, 
—  a  world  of  enchantment  in  itself.  We  verily 
believe  that  no  man  ever  forgets  the  night  on 
which  as  a  boy  he  first  witnessed  the  representation 
of  a  play.  All  sights  and  sounds  that  reached  his 
senses  before  the  withdrawing  of  the  mysterious 
curtain,  all  things  which  preceded  his  introduction 
to  that  land  of  marvels  which  lies  beyond,  are  min- 
gled inextricably  with  the  memories  of  that  night, 
and  haunt  him  through  many  an  after  year.  The 
very  smell  of  the  lamps  and  orange-peel,  the  dis- 
cordant cries,  the  ringing  of  the  prompter's  bell, 
and  above  all  the  heavy  dark  green  curtain  itself, 
become  essential  parts  of  the  charm  in  which  his 
spirit  is  long  after  held.  It  was  so  with  ourselves ; 
and  though  many  a  year  is  gone  by  since  that 
happy  hour  of  our  lives,  and  most  of  the  spells 
which  were  then  cast  have  been  long  since  broken, 
yet  we  felt  another  taken  from  us  when  at  Drury 
Lane  an  attempt  was  made  to  substitute  a  rich 
curtain  of  crimson  and  gold  for  the  plain  dark  fall 
of  green.  And  then  the  overture  !  the  enchanting 
prelude  to  all  the  wonders  that  await  us  !  the  un- 
earthly music  leading  us  into  fairy  land  !  the  incan- 
tation at  whose  voice,  apparently,  the  mysterious 
veil  on  which  our  eyes  have  been  so  long  and  so 
earnestly  rivetted  rises,  as  if  by  its  own  act,  and 
reveals  to  us  the  mysteries  of  an  enchanted  world  ! 
From  that  moment  all  things  that  lie  on  this  side 


248  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

the  charmed  boundary  are  lost  sight  of,  and  all  the 
wonders  that  are  going  on  beyond  it  are  looked 
on  with  the  most  undoubting  faith.  It  is  not  for  a 
moment  suspected  that  the  actors  therein  are  beings 
of  natures  like  ourselves,  nor  is  there  any  ques- 
tioning but  that  we  are  gazing  upon  scenes  and 
doings  separated  from  the  realities  of  life.  Verily 
do  we  believe  that  never  again  in  this  life  are  so 
many  new  and  bewildering  and  bewitching  feelings 
awakened  in  his  breast,  as  on  the  first  night  in 
which  the  boy  is  spectator  of  a  theatrical  perform- 
ance, if  he  be  old  enough  to  enjoy  and  not  quite  old 
enough  clearly  to  understand  what  is  going  on. 

At  this  holiday  period  of  the  year  the  boxes  of 
our  theatres  are  filled  with  the  happy  faces,  and 
their  walls  ring  with  the  sweet  laughter  of  children. 
All  things  are  matters  of  amazement  and  subjects 
of  exclamation.  But  in  London  above  all  things, 
—  far,  far  beyond  all  other  things  (though  it  does 
not  begin  for  some  days  later  than  this)  is  the  pan- 
tomime with  its  gorgeous  scenery  and  incompre- 
hensible transformations  and  ineffable  fun.  "  Ready 
to  leap  out  of  the  box,"  says  Leigh  Hunt,  "  they 
joy  in  the  mischief  of  the  clown,  laugh  at  the 
thwacks  he  gets  for  his  meddling,  and  feel  no  small 
portion  of  contempt  for  his  ignorance  in  not  know- 
ing that  hot  water  will  scald,  and  gunpowder  ex- 
plode ;  while  with  head  aside  to  give  fresh  energy 
to  the  strokes,  they  ring  their  little  palms  against 
each    other    in    testimony   of  exuberant   delight." 


ST.    THOMAS  S    DAY.  249 

The  winter  pantomimes  are  introduced  on  the 
evening  next  after  Christmas  night ;  and  some  ac- 
count of  this  entertainment  seems,  as  a  feature  of 
the  season,  due  to  our  Christmas  readers. 

From  Italy,  then,  we  appear  to  have  derived  our 
pantomime,  —  the  legitimate  drama  of  Christmas, 
and  to  pagan  times  and  deities  the  origin  of  our 
pantomimical  characters  may  be  directly  referred. 
The  nimble  harlequin  of  our  stage  is  the  Mercury 
of  the  ancients,  and  in  his  magic  wand  and  charmed 
cap  may  be  recognized  that  god's  caduceus  and 
petasus.  Our  columbine  is  Psyche,  our  clown  Momus, 
and  our  pantaloon  is  conjectured  to  be  the  modern 
representative  of  Charon,  —  variously  habited  indeed, 
according  to  Venetian  fancy  and  feelings.  Even 
Punch,  the  friend  of  our  childhood,  the  great-headed, 
long-nosed,  hump-backed  "  Mister  Ponch,"  it  seems, 
was  known  to  the  Romans,  under  the  name  of 
Maccus. 

Our  pantomime,  however,  is  an  inferior  translation, 
rather  than  a  good  copy,  from  its  Italian  original. 
The  rich  humor,  the  ready  wit,  the  exquisite  raciness 
of  the  Italian  performance  have  all  evaporated,  and 
with  us  are  burlesqued  by  the  vapid  joke,  the  stale 
trick,  and  acts  of  low  buffoonery.  We  read  of  the 
pantomimic  actors,  Constantini  and  Cecchini,  being 
ennobled  ;  of  Louis  XIII.  patronizing  the  merits  of 
Nicholas  Barbieri,  and  raising  him  to  fortune  ;  that 
Tiberio  Fiurilli,  the  inventor  of  the  character  of 
Scaramouch,  was  the  early  companion  of  Louis  XIV., 


250  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

and  that  the  wit  of  the  harlequin  Dominic  made 
him  a  favored  guest  at  the  same  monarch's  table. 
These  instances  of  distinction  are  alone  sufficient 
proof  of  the  superior  refinement  of  the  actors  of 
Italian  pantomime,  above  our  vulgar  tribe  of  tum- 
blers. The  Italian  artists  were  fellows  "  of  infinite 
jest,"  whose  ready  wit  enabled  them  to  support  ex- 
tempore dialogue,  suiting  "  the  action  to  the  word, 
and  the  word  to  the  action  ; "  for  the  Arlequino  of 
Italy  was  not  a  mute  like  his  English  representa- 
tive. Many  of  the  Italian  harlequins  were  authors  of 
considerable  reputation ;  Ruzzante,  who  flourished 
about  1530,  may  be  regarded  as  the  Shakspeare  of 
pantomime.  "  Till  his  time,"  says  D'Israeli,  "  they 
had  servilely  copied  the  duped  fathers,  the  wild  sons, 
and  the  tricking  valets  of  Plautus  and  Terence  ;  and 
perhaps,  not  being  writers  of  sufficient  skill  but  of 
some  invention,  were  satisfied  to  sketch  the  plots  of 
dramas,  boldly  trusting  to  extempore  acting  and 
dialogue.  Ruzzante  peopled  the  Italian  stage  with 
a  fresh,  enlivening  crowd  of  pantomimic  characters. 
The  insipid  dotards  of  the  ancient  comedy  were 
transformed  into  the  Venetian  Pantaloon,  and  the 
Bolognese  Doctor;  while  the  hare-brained  fellow, 
the  arch  knave,  and  the  booby,  were  furnished  from 
Milan,  Bergamo,  and  Calabria.  He  gave  his  newly 
created  beings  new  language  and  a  new  dress. 
From  Plautus,  he  appears  to  have  taken  the  hint  of 
introducing  all  the  Italian  dialects  into  one  comedy, 
by  making  each  character  use  his  own,  —  and  even 


ST.    THOMAS  S    DAY.  25  I 

the  modern  Greek,  which,  it  seems,  afforded  many 
an  unexpected  play  on  words  for  the  Italian.  This 
new  kind  of  pleasure,  like  the  language  of  Babel, 
charmed  the  national  ear ;  every  province  would 
have  its  dialect  introduced  on  the  scene,  which 
often  served  the  purpose  both  of  recreation  and  a 
little  innocent  malice.  Their  masks  and  dresses 
were  furnished  by  the  grotesque  masqueraders  of 
the  Carnival,  which,  doubtless,  often  contributed 
many  scenes  and  humors  to  the  quick  and  fanciful 
genius  of  Ruzzante." 

To  the  interesting  essay,  by  the  author  of  the 
"Curiosities  of  Literature,"  from  whence  this  ex- 
tract is  derived,  we  beg  leave  to  refer  the  reader 
for  an  anecdotical  history  of  pantomime.  Mr. 
DTsraeli  in  conclusion  observes,  that  "  in  gesticula- 
tion and  humor  our  Rich  appears  to  have  been  a 
complete  mime  ;  his  genius  was  entirely  confined 
to  pantomime,  and  he  had  the  glory  of  introducing 
Harlequin  on  the  English  stage,  which  he  played 
under  the  feigned  name  of  Lun.  He  could  describe 
to  the  audience  by  his  signs  and  gestures,  as  intelli- 
gibly as  others  could  express  by  words.  There  is  a 
large  caricature  print  of  the  triumph  which  Rich  had 
obtained  over  the  severe  muses  of  tragedy  and 
comedy,  which  lasted  too  long  not  to  excite  jealousy 
and  opposition  from  the  corps  dramaiique. 

"  Garrick,  who  once  introduced  a  speaking  Har- 
lequin, has  celebrated  the  silent  but  powerful  lan- 
guage of  Rich  :  — 


252  THE    BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

'  When  LUN  appeared,  with  matchless  art  and  whim, 
He  gave  the  power  of  speech  to  every  limb, 
The'  mask'd  and  mute,  convey'd  his  quick  intent, 
And  told  in  frolic  gestures  what  he  meant ; 
But  now  the  motley  coat  and  sword  of  wood 
Require  a  tongue  to  make  them  understood  ! '" 

Foote,  it  was,  we  think,  who  attempted  to  get  a 
standing  for  a  Harlequin  with  a  wooden  leg  upon 
the  English  stage  ;  and  though  he  was  supported  by 
a  clown  upon  crutches,  these  and  other  efforts  to 
effect  a  witty  reform  in  the  mechanism  of  an  Eng- 
lish pantomime  proved  unsuccessful.  "  Why  is 
this  burlesque  race  here,"  inquires  Mr.  D'Israeh, 
"  privileged  to  cost  so  much,  to  do  so  little,  and 
repeat  that  little  so  often?  "  In  1827,  according  to 
a  statement  which  we  believe  to  be  tolerably  cor- 
rect, the  "  getting  up,"  as  it  is  termed,  of  the  pan- 
tomimes produced  on  the  26th  of  December,  in 
London,  cost  at  — 

Covent  Garden ;^  1,000 

Drury  Lane 1,000 

Surrey 500 

Adelphi 200 

Olympic 150 

Sadler's  Wells 100 

West  London 100 

Making  the  total  of    .     ...     ;£'3,o5o 

and  in  other  years,  we  believe  the  cost  has  been 
considerably  more  ;  and  yet  this  enormous  expendi- 
ture left   no  impression   on   the  popular   memory. 


ST.    THOMAS  S   DAY.  253 

mere  stage-trick  being  far  below  the  exhibition  of  a 
juggler.  True  it  is,  that  clever  artists  have  been 
for  many  years  employed  to  design  and  paint  the 
scenery  of  the  pantomimes,  and  consequently  ad- 
mirable pictures  have  been  exhibited,  especially  at 
the  national  theatres,  where  this  feature,  indeed, 
constitutes  the  main  attraction  of  the  evening's 
performance.  The  stupid  tragedy  of  "  George  Barn- 
well," produced  for  the  sake  of  the  city  apprentices, 
was  formerly  the  usual  prelude  to  the  Christmas 
pantomime  on  the  night  of  St.  Stephen's  Day. 
Hone,  in  his  "Every- Day  Book,"  has  chronicled 
that  "  the  representation  of  this  tragedy  was  omitted 
in  the  Christmas  holidays  of  1819,  at  both  theatres, 
for  the  first  time."  To  be  sure,  this  dull  affair 
answered  the  purpose  as  well  as  any  other,  it  being 
an  established  rule  with  the  tenants  of  the  theatrical 
Olympus  that  nothing  shall  be  heard  save  their 
own  thunders,  previously  to  the  pantomime  on 
St.  Stephen's  night.  The  most  famous  pantomime 
which  has  been  played  in  our  times  is  unquestiona- 
bly Mother  Goose.  When  it  was  produced,  or  to 
whom  the  authorship  is  ascribed,  we  know  not ;  but 
in  1808  it  was  revived  and  played  at  the  Haymarket, 
with  an  additional  scene  representing  the  burning 
of  Covent  Garden  Theatre.  The  pantomimes  of 
the  last  thirty  years  have  failed  to  effect  a  total 
eclipse  of  the  brilliancy  of  "  Harlequin  and  Mother 
Goose,  or  the  Golden  Egg ;  "  which  found  its  way 
into  the  hst  of  provincial  stock-pieces. 


254  1"HE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

Connected  with  this  golden  age  of  English  pan- 
tomime, the  recollection  of  Grimaldi,  Joey  Grimaldi, 
as  the  gallery  folk  delighted  to  call  him,  is  an  ob- 
vious association.  His  acting  like  that  of  Liston 
must  have  been  seen  to  be  understood  or  appreci- 
ated ;  for  no  description  can  convey  an  adequate 
idea  of  the  power  of  expression  and  gesture.  They 
who  have  not  seen  Joey  may  never  hope  to  look 
upon  his  like ;  and  they  who  have  seen  him  must 
never  expect  to  see  his  Hke  again.  On  the  Eng- 
Hsh  stage  never  was  clown  like  Grimaldi !  He  was 
far  more  than  a  clown,  he  was  a  great  comic  actor. 
But  his  constitution  soon  gave  way  under  the  trials 
to  which  it  was  exposed.  In  the  depth  of  winter, 
after  performing  at  Sadler's  Wells,  he  was  brought 
down  night  after  night  wrapped  in  blankets  to  Cov- 
ent  Garden  ;  and  there  had,  for  the  second  time  in 
the  course  of  the  same  evening,  to  go  through  the 
allotted  series  of  grimaces,  leaps,  and  tumbles. 
Poor  Grimaldi,  sunk  by  these  exertions  into  a  prem- 
ature old  age,  was  finally  obliged  to  retire  from 
the  stage  on  the  27th  of  June,  1828  ;  and  the  Liter- 
ary Gazette  thus  pleasantly,  but  feelingly,  announced 
his  intention  :  — 

•'  Our  immense  favorite,  Grimaldi,  under  the 
severe  pressure  of  years  and.  infirmities,  is  enabled 
through  the  good  feeling  and  prompt  liberality  of 
Mr.  Price,  to  take  a  benefit  at  Drury  Lane  on 
Friday  next ;  the  last  of  Joseph  Grimaldi  !  Drury's, 
Covent  Garden's,  Sadler's,  everybody's  Joe  !     The 


ST.    THOMAS  S   DAY,  255 

friend  of  Harlequin  and  Farley-kin  !  the  town 
clown  !  greatest  of  fools  !  daintiest  of  motleys  !  the 
true  ami  des  enfans  !  The  tricks  and  changes  of 
life,  sadder,  alas  !  than  those  of  pantomime,  have 
made  a  dismal  difference  between  the  former  flap- 
ping, filching,  laughing,  bounding  antic  and  the 
present  Grimaldi.  He  has  no  spring  in  his  foot, 
no  mirth  in  his  eye  !  The  comers  of  his  mouth 
droop  mournfully  earthward ;  and  he  stoops  in  the 
back,  like  the  weariest  of  Time's  porters  !  L'AUegro 
has  done  with  him,  and  II  Penseroso  claims  him  for 
its  own !  It  is  said,  besides,  that  his  pockets  are 
neither  so  large  nor  so  well  stuffed  as  they  used  to 
be  on  the  stage  :  and  it  is  hard  to  suppose  fun  with- 
out funds,  or  broad  grins  in  narrow  circumstances." 
The  mummers,  who  still  go  about  at  this  season 
of  the  year  in  some  parts  of  England,  are  the  last 
descendants  of  those  maskers,  who  in  former  times, 
as  we  have  shown  at  length,  contributed  to  the 
celebrations  of  the  season,  at  once  amongst  the 
highest  and  lowest  classes  of  the  land ;  as  their 
performances  present,  also,  the  last  semblances  of 
those  ancient  Mysteries  and  Moralities,  by  which 
the  splendid  pageants  of  the  court  were  preceded. 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  a  note  to  "  Marmion,"  seems  to 
intimate  that  these  mummeries  are,  in  fact,  the  off- 
spring and  relics  of  the  old  Mysteries  themselves. 
The  fact,  however,  seems  rather  to  be,  that  these 
exhibitions  existed  before  the  introduction  of  the 
Scripture  plays ;  and  that  the  one  and  the  other 


256  THE   BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS, 

are  separate  forms  of  a  practice  copied  directly 
from  the  festival  observances  of  the  pagans.  Ac- 
cordingly, Brand  speaks  of  a  species  of  mumming 
which  "  consists  in  changing  clothes  between  men 
and  women  who,  when  dressed  in  each  other's 
habits  go  from  one  neighbor's  house  to  another, 
partaking  of  Christmas  cheer  and  making  merry 
with  them  in  disguise ; "  and  which  practice  he 
traces  directly  to  the  Roman  Sigillaria.  In  various 
parts  of  the  Continent  also,  as  in  France  and  Ger- 
many, certain  forms  of  mumming  long  existed, 
which  appear  to  have  been  originally  borrowed 
from  the  rites  of  idolatry  :  and  the  Scottish  Guisars, 
or  Guisarts.  if  the  very  ingenious  explanation  of 
their  hogmanay  cry  given  by  Mr.  Repp  (and  for 
which  we  refer  our  readers  to  vol.  iv.,  part  1,  of  the 
Archseologia  Scotica)  be  correct,  connect  them- 
selves with  the  superstitions  of  the  northern  nations. 
Amongst  the  forms  of  ancient  mumming  which 
have  come  down  to  the  present  or  recent  times, 
we  may  observe  that  the  hobby-horse  formed  as 
late  as  the  seventeenth  century  a  prominent  char- 
acter, and  that  something  of  this  kind  seems  still 
to  exist.  Dr.  Plot  in  his  "  History  of  Stafford- 
shire "  mentions  a  performance  called  the  "  Hobby- 
horse Dance,"  as  having  taken  place  at  Abbot's 
Bromley  during  the  Christmas  season,  within  the 
memory  of  man ;  and  we  have  already  shown  that 
a  modification  of  the  same  practice  continues  to 
the  present  day,  or  did  to  within  a  few  years  back. 


ST.    THOMAS'S   DAY.  257 

in  the  Isle  of  Thanet.  This  dance  is  described  by 
Dr.  Plot  as  being  composed  of  "  a  person  who  car- 
ried the  image  of  a  horse  between  his  legs,  made 
of  thin  boards,  and  in  his  hand  a  bow  and  arrow. 
The  latter,  passing  through  a  hole  in  the  bow  and 
stopping  on  a  shoulder,  made  a  snapping  noise 
when  drawn  to  and  fro,  keeping  time  with  the 
music.  With  this  man  danced  six  others,  carrying 
on  their  shoulders  as  many  reindeer  heads  with 
the  arms  of  the  chief  families  to  whom  the  reve- 
nues of  the  town  belonged.  They  danced  the  heys, 
and  other  country  dances.  To  the  above  Hobby- 
horse there  belonged  a  pot,  which  was  kept  by  turns 
by  the  reeves  of  the  town,  who  provided  cakes  and 
ale  to  put  into  this  pot,  —  all  people  who  had  any 
kindness  for  the  good  intent  of  the  institution  of 
the  sport,  giving  pence  a-piece  for  themselves  and 
families.  Foreigners  also  that  came  to  see  it  con- 
tributed ;  and  the  money,  after  defraying  the  ex- 
pense of  the  cakes  and  ale,  went  to  repair  the 
church  and  support  the  poor."  A  reason  gi\'en  by 
some  as  the  origin  of  this  practice,  we  have  already 
stated  in  our  mention  of  "  hodening ;  "  and  our 
readers  will  see  that  its  object,  like  that  of  the 
other  similar  observances  of  this  season,  was 
charity. 

In  some  parts  of  the  north  of  England,  a  custom 
exists  to  the  present  time  which  appears  to  be  com- 
posed of  the  ancient  Roman  sword-dance,  or,  per- 
haps, the  sword-dance  of  the  northern  nations,  and 


258  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

lingering  traces  of  the  obsolete  "  Festival  of  Fools." 
This  practice,  which  is  called  the  "  Fool  Plough," 
consists  in  a  pageant  composed  of  "a  number  of 
sword-dancers  dragging  a  plough,  with  music,  and 
one,  sometimes  two,  in  very  strange  attire ;  the 
Bessy  in  the  grotesque  habit  of  an  old  woman,  and 
the  fool  almost  covered  with  skins,  a  hairy  cap  on, 
and  the  tail  of  some  animal  hanging  from  his  back. 
The  office  of  one  of  these  characters,  in  which  he  is 
very  assiduous,  is  to  go  about  rattling  a  box  amongst 
the  spectators  of  the  dance,  in  which  he  receives 
their  little  donations."  Our  readers  will  probably 
remember  that  a  set  of  these  mummers  are  introduced 
by  Washington  Irving,  in  his  account  of  a  Christmas 
spent  in  Yorkshire. 

The  old  Christmas  play  of  "  Saint  George  and  the 
Dragon  "  is  still  amongst  the  most  popular  amuse- 
ments of  this  season,  in  many  parts  of  England. 
Whether  this  particular  kind  of  performance  is  to 
be  considered  as  dating  from  the  return  of  the  Cru- 
saders, or  that  similar  representations  had  existed 
previously,  the  characters  of  which  alone  were 
changed  by  that  event,  does  not  appear  from  any 
other  remains  that  have  reached  us.  There  is 
evidence,  however,  that  plays  founded  upon  the 
legend  of  Saint  George  are  of  a  very  remote  date ; 
and,  in  all  probability,  they  were  introduced  not 
long  after  the  age  of  the  Crusades.  From  various 
contributors  to  Mr.  Hone's  "  Every-Day  Book,"  we 
learn   that    versions   of  these   plays   are  still   per- 


ST.  Thomas's  day.  259 

formed  amongst  the  lower  orders  at  the  Christmas 
tide,  in  the  extreme  western  counties  of  England,  as 
also  in  Cumberland,  and  some  others  of  the  more 
northern  ones ;  and  one  of  those  correspondents, 
dating  from  Falkirk,  gives  an  account  of  a  play  still 
perfonned  by  the  Guisars,  in  some  parts  of  Scotland, 
which  is  of  similar  construction  and  evidently  bor- 
rowed from  the  same  source,  but  in  which  one  Gal- 
gacus  is  substituted  for  Saint  George,  as  the  hero  of 
the  piece  ;  and  the  drama  is  made  by  that  substitu- 
tion to  commemorate  the  successful  battle  of  the 
Grampians,  by  the  Scots  under  that  leader,  against 
the  invader,  Agricola.  If  Mr.  Reddock  be  right  in 
this  opinion,  Agricola  is  for  the  nonce  elevated  to 
the  title  of  king  of  Macedon.  The  party  who  carries 
the  bag  for  these  mummers  is  a  very  questionable 
trustee,  being  no  other  than  Judas  Iscariot.  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  in  his  notes  to  "  Marmion,"  speaks  of 
the  same  play  as  one  in  which  he  and  his  compan- 
ions were  in  the  habit  of  taking  parts,  when  boys ; 
and  mentions  the  characters  of  the  old  Scripture- 
plays  having  got  mixed  up  with  it  in  the  version 
familiar  to  him.  He  enumerates  Saint  Peter,  who 
carried  the  keys ;  Saint  Paul,  who  was  armed  with  a 
sword ;  and  Judas,  who  had  the  bag  for  contribu- 
tions; and  says  that  he  believes  there  was  also  a 
Saint  George.  It  is  not  unlikely  there  might,  though 
he  is  not  mentioned  by  Mr.  Reddock,  for  the  con- 
fusion of  characters  in  all  these  versions  is  very 
great.     In  the  AVhitehaven  edition.  Saint  George  is 


26o  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

son  to  the  king  of  Egypt,  and  the  hero  who  carries 
all  before  him  is  Alexander.  He  conquers  Saint 
George  and  kills  the  king  of  Egypt.  In  fact  the 
legend,  as  it  exists  in  the  old  romance  of  "  Sir  Bevys 
of  Hampton,"  has  everywhere  been  mixed  up  with 
extraneous  matter,  and  scarcely  any  two  sets  of  per- 
formers render  it  alike.  The  plot  seems,  in  all,  to 
be  pretty  nearly  the  same  ;  and  the  doctor,  with  his 
marvellous  cures  and  empirical  gibberish,  seems  to 
be  common  to  them  all.  "  But  so  little,"  says 
Sand)'s,  "  do  the  actors  know  the  history  of  their 
own  drama,  that  sometimes  General  Wolfe  is  intro- 
duced, who  first  fights  Saint  George,  and  then  sings 
a  song  about  his  own  death.  I  have  also  seen  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  represented."  Mr.  Reddock 
mentions,  that  during  the  war  with  France  one  of 
the  characters  in  his  version  "was  made  to  say  that 
he  had  been  '  fighting  the  French,'  and  that  the  loon 
who  took  leg-bail  was  no  less  a  personage  than  "  the 
great  Napoleon.  Mr.  Sandys  mentions  that  occa- 
sionally there  is  a  sort  of  anti-masque,  or  burlesque 
(if  the  burlesque  itself  can  be  burlesqued)  at  the 
end  of  the  performance  ;  when  some  comic  charac- 
ters enter,  called  Hub  Bub,  Old  Squire,  etc.,  and  the 
piece  concludes  with  a  dance.  At  other  times,  the 
performances  are  wound  up  by  a  song. 

We  may  mention  that  we  have  in  our  possession 
an  Irish  version  of  the  same  play,  as  it  is  still  played 
by  the  boys  in  that  country ;  in  which  version,  as 
might  be  expected,  the   championship  is  given  to 


ST.  Thomas's  day.  261 

Saint  Patrick,  who  asserts  that  Saint  George  was 
nothing  more  tlian  "Saint  Patrick's  boy,"  and  fed 
his  horses.  Another  of  the  characters  in  this  edition 
of  the  story  is  Oliver  Cromwell,  who,  after  certain 
grandiloquent  boastings  (amongst  others,  that  he 
had  "  conquered  many  nations  with  his  copper 
nose  "),  calls  upon  no  less  personage  than  Beelzebub 
to  step  in  and  confirm  his  assertions. 

The  costume  and  accoutrements  of  these  mum- 
mers (of  whom  we  have  given  a  representation  at 
page  65)  appear  to  be  pretty  generally  of  the  same 
kind,  and,  for  the  most  part,  to  resemble  those  of 
morris-dancers.  They  are  thus  correctly  described 
by  Mr.  Sandys.  Saint  George  and  the  other  tragic 
performers  wear  "white  trousers  and  waistcoats, 
showing  their  shirt-sleeves,  and  are  much  decorated 
with  ribbons  and  handkerchiefs,  each  carrying  a 
drawn  sword  in  his  hand,  if  they  can  be  procured, 
otherwise  a  cudgel.  They  wear  high  caps  of  paste- 
board covered  with  fancy  paper,  adorned  with  beads, 
small  pieces  of  looking-glass,  bugles,  etc.,  several 
long  strips  of  pith  generally  hanging  down  from  the 
top,  with  shreds  of  different  colored  cloth  strung  on 
them,  the  whole  having  a  fanciful  and  smart  effect- 
The  Turk  sometimes  has  a  turban.  Father  Christ- 
mas is  personified  as  a  grotesque  old  man,  wearing 
a  large  mask  and  wig,  with  a  huge  club  in  his  hand. 
The  doctor,  who  is  sort  of  merry-andrew  to  the 
piece,  is  dressed  in  some  ridiculous  way,  with  a 
three-cornered  hat  and  painted  face.     The  female 


262  THE   BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

when  there  is  one,  is  in  the  costume  of  her  great- 
grandmother.  The  hobby-horse,  when  introduced, 
has  a  sort  of  representation  of  a  horse's  hide  ;  but 
the  dragon  and  the  giant,  when  there  is  one,  fre- 
quently appear  with  the  same  style  of  dress  as  the 
knights." 

We  will  present  our  readers  with  the  version  of 
this  old  drama  given  by  Mr.  Sandys,  as  still  per- 
formed in  Cornwall.  Elsewhere,  we  have  met  with 
some  slight  variations  upon  even  this  Cornwall  piece, 
but  will  be  content  to  print  it  as  we  find  it  in 
the  collection  in  question.  Our  Lancashire  readers 
will  at  once  recognize  its  close  resemblance  to  the 
play  performed  in  that  county,  about  the  time  of 
Easter,  by  the  Peace-eggers,  or  Paste-eggers,  of 
whom  we  shall  speak,  in  their  proper  place,  in  a 
future  volume. 

Enter  the  Turkish  Knight. 
Open  your  doors  and  let  me  in, 
I  hope  your  favors  I  shall  win ; 
Whether  I  rise  or  whether  I  fall 
I  '11  do  my  best  to  please  you  all. 
Saint  George  is  here,  and  swears  he  will  come  in, 
And  if  he  does,  I  know  he  '11  pierce  my  skin. 
If  you  will  not  believe  what  I  do  say, 
Let  Father  Christmas  come  in,  —  clear  the  way ! 

\Retires. 
Ettter  Father  Christmas. 
Here  come  I,  old  Father  Christmas, 

Welcome,  or  welcome  not, 
I  hope  old  Father  Christmas 
Will  never  be  forgot. 


ST.  Thomas's  day.  263 

I  am  not  come  here  to  laugh  or  to  jeer, 

But  for  a  pocketful  of  money  and  a  skinful  of  beer. 

If  you  will  not  believe  what  I  do  say, 

Come  in  the  King  of  Egypt,  —  clear  the  way ! 

Enter  the  King  of  Egypt. 
Here  I,  the  King  of  Egypt,  boldly  do  appear, 
Saint  George  !  Saint  George  !  walk  in,  my  only  son  and  heir. 
Walk  in,  my  son.  Saint  George  !  and  boldly  act  thy  part, 
That  all  the  people  here  may  see  thy  wond'rous  art. 

Enter  Saint  George. 
Here  come  I,  Saint  George,  from  Britain  did  I  spring, 
I  '11  fight  the  Dragon  bold,  my  wonders  to  begin, 
I  '11  clip  his  wings,  he  shall  not  fly  ; 
I'll  cut  him  down,  or  else  I  die. 

Enter  the  Dragon. 

Who  's  he  that  seeks  the  Dragon's  blood, 
And  calls  so  angry,  and  so  loud  ? 
That  English  dog,  will  he  before  me  stand  ? 
I  '11  cut  him  down  with  my  courageous  hand. 
With  my  long  teeth  and  scurvy  jaw, 
Of  such  I  'd  break  up  half  a  score. 
And  stay  my  stomach,  till  I  'd  more. 
\Saint  George  and  the  Dragon  fight,  —  the  latter  is  killed. 

Father  Christinas. 

Is  there  a  doctor  to  be  found 

All  ready,  near  at  hand. 
To  cure  a  deep  and  deadly  wound, 

And  make  the  champion  stand.' 

Enter  Doctor. 

Oh !  yes,  there  is  a  doctor  to  be  found 

All  ready,  near  at  hand, 
To  cure  a  deep  and  deadly  wound. 

And  make  the  champion  stand. 


264  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

Fa.  Chris.     What  can  you  cure  ? 
Doctor.  All  sorts  of  diseases, 

Whatever  you  pleases, 

The  phthisic,  the  palsy,  and  the  gout ; 

If  the  devil 's  in,  I'll  blow  him  out. 


Fa.  Chris.     What  is  your  fee  ? 
Doctor.  Fifteen  pound,  it  is  my  fee, 

The  money  to  lay  down  ; 
But,  as  't  is  such  a  rogue  as  thee, 

I  cure  for  ten  pound. 
I  carry  a  little  bottle  of  alicumpane, 
Here  Jack,  take  a  little  of  my  flip  flop, 
Pour  it  down  thy  tip  top, 
Rise  up  and  fight  again. 

\^The  Doctor  performs  his  cure,  the  fight  is 
renewed,  and  the  Dragon  agaifi  killed. 

Saint  George. 

Here  am  I,  Saint  George, 

That  worthy  champion  bold ! 
And  with  my  sword  and  spear 
I  won  three  crowns  of  gold ! 
I  fought  the  fiery  dragon, 

And  brought  him  to  the  slaughter; 
By  that  I  won  fair  Sabra, 

The  King  of  Egypt's  daughter. 
Where  is  the  man,  that  now  me  will  defy  ? 
I  '11  cut  his  giblets  full  of  holes,  and  make  his  buttons  fly. 

The  Turkish  Knight  advances. 

Here  come  I,  the  Turkish  knight. 

Come  from  the  Turkish  land  to  fight  1 

I  '11  fight  Saint  George,  who  is  my  foe, 

I  '11  make  him  yield,  before  I  go ; 

He  brags  to  such  a  high  degree. 

He  thinks  there 's  none  can  do  the  like  of  he. 


ST.  Thomas's  day.  265 

Saint  George. 

Where  is  the  Turk,  that  will  before  me  stand  ? 
I'll  cut  him  down  with  my  courageous  hand. 

[  They  fight,  the  Knight  is  avercotne,  and 
falls  on  one  knee. 

Turkish  Knight. 

Oh !  pardon  me,  Saint  George !  pardon  of  thee  I  crave, 
Oh !  pardon  me,  this  night,  and  I  will  be  thy  slave. 

Saint  George. 

No  pardon  shalt  thou  have,  while  I  have  foot  to  stand. 

So  rise  thee  up  again,  and  fight  out  sword  in  hand. 

[  They  fight  again,  and  the  Knight  is  killed  ;  father 
Christmas  calls  for  the  Doctor,  with  whom  the 
same  dialogue  occurs  as  before,  and  the  cure  is 
performed. 

Enter  the  Giant  Turpin. 

Here  come  I,  the  Giant !  bold  Turpin  is  my  name. 
And  all  the  nations  round  do  tremble  at  my  fame. 
Where'er  I  go,  they  tremble  at  my  sight. 
No  lord  or  champion  long  with  me  would  fight. 

Saint  George, 

Here  's  one  that  dares  to  look  thee  in  the  face. 
And  soon  will  send  thee  to  another  place. 

[  They  fight,  and  the  Giant  is  killed ;  medical  aid  is 
called  in,  as  before,  and  the  cure  performed  by 
the  Doctor,  who  then,  according  to  the  stage 
direction,  is  given  a  basin  of  girdy  grout,  and 
a  kick,  and  driven  out. 

Father  Christmas. 

Now,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  your  sport  is  most  ended. 
So  prepare  for  the  hat,  which  is  highly  commended. 


266 


THE   BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 


The  hat  it  would  speak,  if  it  had  but  a  tongue. 
Come  throw  in  your  money,  and  think  it  no  wrong. 

And  these,  with  the  dance  filling  up  the  intervals 
and  enlivening  the  winter  nights,  are  amongst  the 
sports  and  amusements  which  extend  themselves 
over  the  Christmas  season  and  connect  together  its 
more  special  and  characteristic  observances. 


GALANTEE    SHOW. 


CHRISTMAS  EVE. 

24TH    DECEMBER. 


"  Some  say,  that  ever  'gainst  that  season  comes 
Wherein  our  Saviour's  birth  is  celebrated, 
This  bird  of  dawning  singeth  all  night  long  : 
And  then,  they  say,  no  spirit  dares  stir  abroad  ; 
The  nights  are  wholesome  •,  then  no  planets  strike. 
No  fairy  takes,  nor  witch  hath  power  to  charm, 
So  hallow'd  and  so  gracious  is  the  time." 

Hamlet. 

The  progress  of  the  Christmas  celebrations  has  at 
length  brought  us  up  to  the  immediate  threshold 
of  that  high  day  in  honor  of  which  they  are  all 
instituted  ;  and  amid  the  crowd  of  festivities  by 
which  it  is  on  all  sides  surrounded,  the  Christian 
heart  makes  a  pause  to-night.  Not  that  the  Eve 
of  Christmas  is  marked  by  an  entire  abstinence 
from  that  spirit  of  festival  by  which  the  rest  of 
this  season  is  distinguished,  nor  that  the  joyous 
character  of  the  event  on  whose  immediate  verge 
It  stands  requires  that  it  should.  No  part  of  that 
season  is  more  generally  dedicated  to  the  assem- 
bling of  friends  than  are  the  great  day  itself  and 
the   eve  which   ushers   it   in.      Still,  however,  the 


268  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

feelings  of  rejoicing  which  properly  belong  to  the 
blessed  occasion  are  chastened  by  the  immediate 
presence  of  the  occasion  itself;  and  touching  tra- 
ditions and  beautiful  superstitions  have  given  an 
air  of  solemnity  to  the  night,  beneath  whose  influ- 
ence the  spirit  of  commemoration  assumes  a  religious 
character,  and  takes  a  softened  tone. 

Before  however,  touching  upon  the  customs  and 
ceremonies  of  the  night,  or  upon  those  natural 
superstitions  which  have  hung  themselves  around 
its  sacred  watches,  we  must  take  a  glimpse  at  an 
out-of-door  scene  which  forms  a  curious  enough 
feature  of  Christmas  Eve,  and  is  rather  connected 
with  the  great  festival  of  to-morrow  than  with  the 
hushed  and  expectant  feelings  which  are  the  fitting 
moral  condition  of  to-night. 

Everywhere  throughout  the  British  isles  Christ- 
mas Eve  is  marked  by  an  increased  activity  about 
the  good  things  of  this  life.  "  Now,'  says  Steven- 
son, an  old  writer  whom  we  have  already  quoted 
for  the  customs  of  Charles  the  Second's  time,  "  ca- 
pons and  hens,  besides  turkeys,  geese,  ducks,  with 
beef  and  mutton,  must  all  die ;  for  in  twelve  days 
a  multitude  of  people  will  not  be  fed  with  a  little ;  " 
and  the  preparations  in  this  respect  of  this  present 
period  of  grace,  are  made  much  after  the  ancient 
prescription  of  Stevenson.  The  abundant  displays 
of  every  kind  of  edible  in  the  London  markets  on 
Christmas  Eve,  with  a  view  to  the  twelve  days'  fes- 
tival of  which  it  is  the  overture,  the  blaze  of  lights 


CHRISTMAS    EVE.  269 

amid  which  they  are  exhibited  and  the  evergreen 
decorations  by  which  they  are  embowered,  togetlier 
with  the  crowds  of  idlers  or  of  purchasers  that 
wander  through  these  well-stored  magazines,  pre- 
sent a  picture  of  abundance  and  a  congress  of  faces 
well  worthy  of  a  single  visit  from  the  stranger,  to 
whom  a  London  market  on  the  eve  of  Christmas 
is  as  yet  a  novelty. 

The  approach  of  Christmas  Eve  in  the  metrop- 
olis is  marked  by  the  Smithfield  show  of  over-fed 
cattle  ;  by  the  enormous  beasts  and  birds,  for  the 
fattening  of  which  medals  and  cups  and  prizes 
have  been  awarded  by  committees  of  amateur 
graziers  and  feeders  ;  in  honor  of  which  monstros- 
ities, dinners  have  been  eaten,  toasts  drunk,  and 
speeches  made.  These  prodigious  specimens  of 
corpulency  we  behold,  after  being  thus  glorified, 
led  like  victims  of  antiquity  decked  with  ribbons 
and  other  tokens  of  triumph,  or  perhaps  instead  of 
led,  we  should,  as  the  animals  are  scarcely  able  to 
waddle,  have  used  the  word  goaded,  to  be  immo- 
lated at  the  altar  of  gluttony  in  celebration  of 
Christmas  !  To  admiring  crowds,  on  the  eve  itself, 
are  the  results  of  oil-cake  and  turnip-feeding 
displayed  in  the  various  butcher's  shops  of  the  me- 
tropolis and  its  vicinity  ;  and  the  efficacy  of  walnut- 
cramming  is  illustrated  in  Leadenhall  market,  where 
Norfolk  turkeys  and  Dorking  fowls  appear  in  num- 
bers and  magnitude  unrivalled.  The  average  weight 
given  for  each  turkey,  by  the  statement  heretofore 


270  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

quoted  by  us  of  the  number  and  gravity  of  those 
birds  sent  up  to  London  from  Norfolk  during  two 
days  of  a  Christmas  some  years  ago,  is  nearly 
twelve  pounds ;  but  what  is  called  a  fine  bird  in 
Leadenhall  Market  weighs,  when  trussed,  from 
eighteen  to  one  or  tvvo-and-twenty  pounds,  —  the 
average  price  of  which  may  be  stated  at  twenty 
shillings ;  and  prize  turkeys  have  been  known  to 
weigh  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  hundred  weight. 

Brawn  is  another  dish  of  this  season,  and  is  sold 
by  the  poulterers,  fishmongers,  and  pastry-cooks. 
The  supply  for  the  consumption  of  London  is  chiefly 
derived  from  Canterbury,  Oxfordshire,  and  Hamp- 
shire. "  It  is  manufactured  from  the  flesh  of  large 
boars,  which  are  suffered  to  live  in  a  half-wild  state, 
and,  when  put  up  to  fatten,  are  strapped  and  belted 
tight  round  the  principal  parts  of  the  carcass,  in 
order  to  make  the  flesh  become  dense  and  brawny. 
This  article  comes  to  market  in  rolls  about  two 
feet  long  and  ten  inches  in  diameter,  packed  in 
wicker  baskets." 

Sandys  observes  that  "  Brawn  is  a  dish  of  great 
antiquity,  and  may  be  found  in  most  of  the  old  bills 
of  fare  for  coronation  and  other  great  feasts." 
"  Brawn,  mustard,  and  malmsey  were  directed  for 
breakfast  at  Christmas,  during  Queen  Elizabeth's 
reign ;  and  Dugdale,  in  his  account  of  the  Inner 
Temple  Revels,  of  the  same  age,  states  the  same 
directions  for  that  society.  The  French,"  continues 
Sandys,  "  do  not  appear  to  have  been  so  well  ac- 


CHRISTMAS    EVE.  27  I 

quainted  with  it ;  for,  on  the  capture  of  Calais  by 
them,  they  found  a  large  quantity,  which  they 
guessed  to  be  some  dainty,  and  tried  every  means 
of  preparing  it ;  in  vain  did  they  roast  it,  bake  it, 
and  boil  it ;  it  was  impracticable  and  impenetrable 
to  their  culinary  arts.  Its  merits,  however,  being 
at  length  discovered,  *  Ha  ! '  said  the  monks,  '  what 
delightful  fish  ! '  —  and  immediately  added  it  to 
their  fast-day  viands.  The  Jews,  again,  could  not 
believe  it  was  procured  from  that  impure  beast, 
the  hog,  and  included  it  in  their  list  of  clean 
animals." 

Amid  the  interior  forms  to  be  observed,  on  this 
evening,  by  those  who  would  keep  their  Christmas 
after  the  old  orthodox  fashion,  the  first  to  be 
noticed  is  that  of  the  Yule  Clog.  This  huge  block, 
which,  in  ancient  times,  and  consistently  with  the 
capacity  of  its  vast  receptacle,  was  frequently  the 
root  of  a  large  tree,  it  was  the  practice  to  intro- 
duce into  the  house  with  great  ceremony,  and  to 
the  sound  of  music.     Herrick's  direction  is  :  — 

"  Come,  bring  with  a  noise 
My  merrie,  merrie  boys, 

The  Christmas  log  to  the  firing ; 
While  my  good  dame  she 
Bids  you  all  be  free, 
And  drink  to  your  heart's  desiring." 

In  Drake's  "  Winter  Nights  "  mention  is  made 
of  the  Yule  Clog,  as  lying,  "  in  ponderous  majesty, 
on  the   kitchen  floor,"  until  "  each   had  sung   his 


272  THE   BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

Yule  song,  standing  on  its  centre,"  — •  ere  it  was 
consigned  to  the  flames  that 

"  Went  roaring  up  the  chimney  wide." 

This  Yule  Clog,  according  to  Herrick,  was  to  be 
lighted  with  the  brand  of  the  last  year's  log,  which 
had  been  carefully  laid  aside  for  the  purpose,  and 
music  was  to  be  played  during  the  ceremony  of 
lighting :  — 

"  With  the  last  yeere's  brand 
Light  the  new  block,  and 

For  good  successe  in  his  spending, 
On  your  psaltries  play, 
That  sweet  luck  may 
Come  while  the  log  is  a  teending." 

This  log  appears  to  have  been  considered  as 
sanctifying  the  roof-tree,  and  was  probably  deemed 
a  protection  against  those  evil  spirits  over  whom 
this  season  was  in  every  way  a  triumph.  Accord- 
ingly, various  superstitions  mingled  with  the  pre- 
scribed ceremonials  in  respect  of  it.  From  the 
authority  already  quoted  on  this  subject,  we  learn 
that  its  virtues  were  not  to  be  extracted,  unless 
it  were  lighted  with  clean  hands  —  a  direction, 
probably,  including  both  a  useful  household  hint  to 
the  domestics,  and,  it  may  be,  a  moral  of  a  higher 
kind  :  — 

"  Wash  your  hands  or  else  the  fire 
Will  not  tend  to  your  desire ; 
Unwash'd  hands,  ye  maidens,  know, 
Dead  the  fire  though  ye  blow." 


CHRISTMAS   EVE.  273 

Around  this  fire,  when  duly  lighted,  the  hospitali- 
ties of  the  evening  were  dispensed ;  and  as  the 
flames  played  about  it  and  above  it,  with  a  pleasant 
song  of  their  own,  the  song  and  the  tale  and  the  jest 
went  cheerily  round.  In  different  districts,  different 
omens  attached  themselves  to  circumstances  con- 
nected with  this  observance,  but  generally  it  was 
deemed  an  evil  one  if  the  log  went  out  during  the 
night  or,  we  suppose,  during  the  symposium.  The 
extinguished  brand  was,  of  course,  to  be  preserved, 
to  furnish  its  ministry  to  the  ceremonial  of  the 
ensuing  year. 

The  Yule  Clog  is  still  lighted  up,  on  Christmas 
Eve,  in  various  parts  of  England,  and  particularly 
in  the  north.  In  some  places,  where  a  block  of 
sufficient  dimensions  is  not  readily  come  by,  it  is 
usual  to  lay  aside  a  large  coal  for  the  purpose, 
which,  if  not  quite  orthodox,  is  an  exceedingly 
good  succedaneum,  and  a  very  rich  source  of  cheer- 
ful inspirations. 

Another  feature  of  this  evening,  in  the  houses  of 
the  more  wealthy,  was  the  tall  Christmas  candles, 
with  their  wreaths  of  evergreens,  which  were  lighted 
up,  along  with  the  Yule  log,  and  placed  on  the 
upper  table,  or  dais,  of  ancient  days.  Those  of 
our  readers  who  desire  to  light  the  Christmas 
candles,  this  year,  may  place  them  on  the  sideboard, 
or  in  any  other  conspicuous  situation.  Brand,  how- 
ever, considers  the  Yule  log  and  the  Christmas 
candle  to  be  but  one  observance,  and  that  the 
18 


2  74  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

former  is  only  a  substitute  for  the  latter.  By  our 
ancestors,  of  the  Latin  church,  Christmas  was  for- 
merly called  the  "Feast  of  Lights,"  arid  numbers  of 
lights  were  displayed  on  the  occasion.  The  lights 
and  the  title  were  both  typical  of  the  religious  light 
dawning  upon  the  world  at  that  sacred  period,  —  of 
the  advent,  in  fact,  of  the  "  Light  of  lights,"  and 
the  conquest  over  moral  darkness.  Hence,  it  is 
thought,  arose  the  domestic  ceremony  of  the  Christ- 
mas candle,  and  that  the  Yule  block  was  but  another 
form  of  the  same,  —  the  poor  man's  Christmas 
candle. 

Occasionally,  the  Catholics  appear  to  have  made 
these  Christmas  candles  (as  also  the  candles  exhib- 
ited by  them,  on  other  occasions  of  the  commemo- 
rations connected  with  their  religion)  in  a  triangular 
form,  as  typical  of  the  Trinity.  Mr.  Hone,  in  his 
volume  on  the  subject  of  "  Ancient  Mysteries,"  gives 
a  representation  of  one  of  these  candles ;  and  Mr. 
Crofton  Croker,  in  a  letter  to  us,  speaking  of  the 
huge  dip  candles  called  Christmas  candles,  exhib- 
ited at  this  season  in  the  chandlers'  shops  in  Ire- 
land, and  presented  by  them  to  their  customers, 
says,  "  It  was  the  custom,  I  have  been  told  (for 
the  mystery  of  such  matters  was  confined  to  the 
kitchen),  to  burn  the  three  branches  down  to  the 
point  in  which  they  united,  and  the  remainder  was 
reserved  to  '  see  in,'  as  it  was  termed,  the  new  year 
by."  "There  is,"  says  Mr.  Croker,  "always  con- 
siderable ceremony  observed  in  lighting  these  great 


1  '"  ^v 


Wassail  Bowi..  — Page  275. 


CHRISTMAS    EVE.  275 

candles  on  Christmas  Eve.  It  is  thought  unlucky 
to  snuff  one ;  and  certain  auguries  are  drawn  from 
the  manner  and  duration  of  their  burning." 

The  customs  peculiar  to  Christmas  Eve  are  nu- 
merous, and  various  in  different  parts  of  the  British 
isles;  the  peculiarities,  in  most  cases,  arising  from 
local  circumstances  or  traditions,  and  determining 
the  particular  forms  of  a  celebration  which  is  univer- 
sal. To  enter  upon  any  thing  like  an  enumeration 
of  these,  it  would  be  necessary  to  allow  ourselves 
another  volume.  We  must,  therefore,  confine  our- 
selves to  the  general  observances  by  which  the 
Christmas  spirit  works,  and  each  of  our  readers  will 
have  no  difficulty  in  connecting  the  several  local 
customs  which  come  under  his  own  notice  with  the 
particular  feature  of  common  celebration  to  which 
they  belong. 

But  all  men,  in  all  places,  who  would  keep  Christ- 
mas Eve  as  Christmas  Eve  should  be  kept,  must  set 
the  wassail-bowl  a-flowing  for  the  occasion.  "  Fill 
me  a  mighty  bowl  ! ''  says  Herrick,  "  up  to  the 
brim  ! "  and  though  this  fountain  of  "  quips  and 
cranks  and  wreathed  smiles,'"  belongs,  in  an  espe- 
cial sense,  to  Twelfth-night  (Twelfth-night  not  being 
Twelfth-night  without  it),  yet  it  should  be  com- 
pounded for  every  one  of  the  festival  nights,  and 
invoked  to  spread   its  inspirations  over   the  entire 

season. 

"  Honor  to  you  who  sit 
Near  to  the  well  of  wit, 
And  drink  vour  fill  of  it !  " 


276  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

again  says  our  friend  Herrick  (what  could  we  do 
without  him,  in  this  Christmas  book  of  ours?).  And 
surely,  judging  by  such  effects  as  we  have  witnessed, 
Herrick  must  have  meant  the  wassail-bowl.  We 
are  perfectly  aware  that  there  are  certain  other 
dwellers  in  that  same  bowl.  Truth  has  been  said 
to  lie  at  the  bottom  of  a  well ;  and  we  have  certainly 
seen  him  unseasonably  brought  up  out  of  the  very 
well  in  question,  by  those  who  have  gone  further 
into  its  depths  than  was  necessary  for  reaching  the 
abode  of  wit.  No  doubt,  truth  is  at  all  times  a 
very  respectable  personage ;  but  there  are  certain 
times  when  he  and  wit  do  not  meet  on  the  best  of 
terms,  and  he  is  apt,  occasionally,  to  be  somewhat 
of  a  revel-marrer.  The  garb  and  temper  in  which 
he  often  follows  wit  out  of  that  bowl  are  not  those 
in  which  he  appears  to  the  most  advantage.  We 
know,  also,  that  there  is  yet  a  deeper  deep,  in  which 
worse  things  still  reside ;  and  although  there  be 
pearls  there,  too,  —  and  the  skilful  diver  may  bring 
treasures  up  out  of  that  bowl,  and  escape  all  its 
evil  spirits,  besides,  —  yet  it  is,  at  any  rate,  not  on 
this  night  of  subdued  mirth  that  we  intend  to 
recommend  an  exploration  of  these  further  depths. 
But  still  the  bowl  should  be  produced,  and  go 
round.  A  cheerful  sporting  with  the  light  bubbles 
that  wit  flings  up  to  its  surface  are  perfectly  con- 
sistent with  the  sacred  character  of  the  night,  and, 
for  ourselves,  we  will  have  a  wassail-bowl  this 
Christmas  Eve. 


CHRISTMAS    EVE.  277 

The  word  "wassail"  is  derived  from  the  Saxors 
was  haile ;  which  word,  and  drinc-heil  (heil,  health) 
were,  as  appears  from  old  authors  quoted  by  Brand, 
the  usual  ancient  phrases  of  quaffing,  among  the 
English  and  equivalent  to  the  "Here's  to  you," 
and  "  I  pledge  you,"  of  the  present  day.  "  The 
wassail-bowl,"  says  Warton,  "  is  Shakspeare's  gos- 
sip's bowl,  in  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream."  It 
should  be  composed,  by  those  who  can  afford  it, 
of  some  rich  wine  highly  spiced  and  sweetened, 
with  roasted  apples  floating  on  its  surface.  But  ale 
was  more  commonly  substituted  for  the  wine,  min- 
gled with  nutmeg,  ginger,  sugar,  toast,  and  roasted 
crabs,  "  It  is,"  says  Leigh  Hunt,  "  a  good-natured 
bowl,  and  accommodates  itself  to  the  means  of  all 
classes,  rich  and  poor.  You  may  have  it  of  the 
costliest  wine  or  the  humblest  malt  liquor.  But  in 
no  case  must  the  roasted  apples  be  forgotten. 
They  are  the  sine  qua  /ion  of  the  wassail-bowl,  as 
the  wassail-bowl  is  of  the  day  {he  is  speaking  of 
New  Year's  Day)  ;  and  very  pleasant  they  are,  pro- 
vided they  are  not  mixed  up  too  much  with  the 
beverage,  balmy,  comfortable,  and  different,  a  sort 
of  meat  in  the  drink,  but  innocent  wjthal  and  re- 
minding you  of  the  orchards.  They  mix  their  flavor 
with  the  beverage,  and  the  beverage  with  them,  giv- 
ing a  new  meaning  to  the  line  of  the  po^t,  — 
'  The  gentler  apple's  winy  juice  ; ' 

for  both  winy  and  gentler  have  they  become  by 
this  process.     Our  ancestors  gave  them  the  affec- 


278  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

tionate  name  of  '  lamb's  wool ; '  for  we  cannot  help 
thinking,  in  spite  of  what  is  intimated  by  one  of 
our  authorities,  that  this  term  applied  more  partic- 
ularly to  the  apples  and  not  so  much  to  the  bowl 
altogether ;  though  if  it  did,  it  shows  how  indispen- 
sably necessary  to  it  they  were  considered."  With 
all  deference  to  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt's  pleasant  and 
graceful  trifling,  lamb's  wool  was  the  title  given  to 
the  composition  itself,  no  doubt  on  account  of  the 
delicate  and  harmonious  qualities,  to  which  the 
apples  contribute  their  share.  Our  readers  will 
find  an  account  of  the  alleged  origin  of  this  an- 
nual practice  in  a  curious  description  of  an  old 
wassail-bowl,  carved  upon  the  oaken  beam  that  sup- 
ported a  chimney-piece  in  an  old  mansion  in  Kent, 
which  description  is  copied  by  Hone  into  his 
"Every- Day  Book,"  from  the  "Antiquarian  Reper- 
tory." In  the  halls  of  our  ancestors,  this  bowl  was 
introduced  with  the  inspiring  cry  of  "  wassail," 
three  times  repeated,  and  immediately  answered 
by  a  song  from  the  chaplain.  We  hope  our 
readers  will  sing  to  the  wassail-bowl  this  C^hristmas- 
tide. 

We  find  that  in  some  parts  of  Ireland  and  in 
Germany,  and  probably  in  districts  of  England,  too, 
Christmas  Eve  is  treated  as  a  night  of  omens,  and 
that  practices  exist  for  gathering  its  auguries  having 
a  resemblance  to  those  of  our  northern  neighbors  at 
Halloween.  Many  beautiful,  and  some  solemn 
superstitions  belong  to  this  night  and  the  following 


CHRISTMAS    EVE.  279 

morning.  It  is  stated  by  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  one 
of  his  notes  to  "  Marmion,"  to  be  an  article  of  popu- 
lar faith,  "  that  they  who  are  born  on  Christmas  or 
Good  Friday  have  the  power  of  seeing  spirits,  and 
even  of  commanding  them  ; "  and  he  adds  that 
"  the  Spaniards  imputed  the  haggard  and  downcast 
looks  of  their  Philip  11.  to  the  disagreeable  visions 
to  which  this  privilege  subjected  him." 

Among  the  finest  superstitions  of  the  night  may 
be  mentioned  that  which  is  alluded  to  by  Shak- 
speare  in  the  lines  which  we  have  placed  as  the 
epigraph  to  the  present  chapter.  It  is  a  conse- 
quence or  application  of  that  very  ancient  and 
popular  belief  which  assigns  the  night  for  the  wan- 
derings of  spirits,  and  supposes  them,  at  the  crow- 
ing of  "  the  cock,  that  is  the  trumpet  to  the  morn," 
to  start  "  like  a  guilty  thing  upon  a  fearful  sum- 
mons," and  betake  themselves  to  flight.  Here 
again,  as  in  so  many  cases  of  vulgar  superstition,  a 
sort  of  mental  metonymy  has  taken  place  ;  and  the 
crowing  of  the  cock,  which  in  the  early  stage  of 
the  belief  was  imagined  to  be  the  signal  for  the 
departure  of  evil  spirits,  only  because  it  announced 
the  morning,  is,  in  the  further  stage  which  we  are 
examining,  held  to  be  a  sound  in  itself  intol- 
erable to  these  shadowy  beings.  Accordingly  it 
is  supposed  that  on  the  eve  of  Christmas  "  the 
bird  of  dawning  singeth  all  night  long,"  to  scare 
away  all  evil  things  from  infesting  the  hallowed 
hours  :  — 


28o  THE   BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

"  And  then,  they  say,  no  spirit  dares  stir  abroad ; 
The'nights  are  wholesome ;  then  no  planets  strike, 
No  fairy  takes,  nor  witch  hath  power  to  charm, 
So  hallow'd  and  so  gracious  is  the  time." 

In  the  south-west  of  England  there  exists  a 
superstitious  notion  that  the  oxen  are  to  be  found 
kneeling  in  their  stalls  at  midnight  of  this  vigil,  as 
if  in  adoration  of  the  Nativity,  —  an  idea  which 
Brand,  no  doubt  correctly,  supposes  to  have  origi- 
nated from  the  representations  by  early  painters 
of  the  event  itself.  That  writer  mentions  a  Cornish 
peasant  who  told  him  (1790)  of  his  having  with 
some  others  watched  several  oxen  in  their  stalls, 
on  the  eve  of  old  Christmas  Day.  "  At  twelve 
o'clock  at  night,  they  observed  the  two  oldest  oxen 
fall  upon  their  knees,  and,  as  he  expressed  it  in  the 
idiom  of  the  country,  make  '  a  cruel  moan  like 
Christian  creatures.' "  To  those  who  regard  the 
analogies  of  the  human  mind,  who  mark  the  prog- 
ress of  tradition,  who  study  the  diffusion  of  certain 
fancies,  and  their  influence  upon  mankind,  an  an- 
ecdote related  by  Mr.  Howison  in  his  "  Sketches 
of  Upper  Canada,"  is  full  of  comparative  interest. 
He  mentions  meeting  an  Indian  at  midnight,  creep- 
ing cautiously  along  in  the  stillness  of  a  beautiful 
moonlight  Christmas  Eve.  The  Indian  made  sig- 
nals to  him  to  be  silent ;  and  when  questioned  as 
to  his  reason  replied,  —  "  Me  watch  to  see  the  deer 
kneel ;  this  is  Christmas  night,  and  all  the  deer  fall 
upon  their  knees  to  the  Great  Spirit,  and  look  up." 


CHRISTMAS    EVE.  251 

In  various  parts  of  England,  bees  are  popularly 
said  to  express  their  veneration  for  the  Nativity  by 
"  singing,"  as  it  is  called,  in  their  hives  at  midnight, 
upon  Christmas  Eve :  and  in  some  places,  particu- 
larly in  Derbyshire,  it  is  asserted  that  the  watcher 
may  hear  the  ringing  of  subterranean  bells.  In  the 
mining  districts  again,  the  workmen  declare  that  — 

"  Ever  'gainst  that  season  comes 
Wherein  our  Saviour's  birth  is  celebrated," 

high  mass  is  solemnly  performed  in  that  cavern 
which  contains  the  richest  lode  of  ore,  that  it  is 
brilliantly  lighted  up  with  candles,  and  that  the 
service  is  chanted  by  unseen  choristers. 

Superstitions  of  this  kind  seem  to  be  embodied 
in  the  carol  commencing  with  "  I  saw  three  ships 
come  sailing  in,"  to  which  we  have  before  alluded ; 
the  rhythm  of  which  old  song  is  to  our  ear  singu- 
larly melodious  :  — 

"  And  all  the  bells  on  earth  shall  ring 

On  Christmas-day,  on  Christmas-day, 
And  all  the  bells  on  earth  shall  ring 
On  Christmas-day  in  the  morning. 

"  And  all  the  angels  in  heaven  shall  sing 
On  Christmas-day,  on  Christmas-day, 
And  all  the  angels  in  heaven  shall  sing 
On  Christmas-day  in  the  morning. 

"  And  all  the  souls  on  earth  shall  sing 
On  Christmas-day,  on  Christmas-day, 
And  all  the  souls  on  earth  shall  sing, 
On  Christmas-day  in  the  morning." 


252  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

Such  fancies  are  but  the  natural  echoes  in  the 
popular  mind  of  ancient  songs  and .  customs  ;  and 
so  strongly  is  that  mind  impressed  with  the  feeling 
of  a  triumph  pervading  the  entire  natural  economy 
on 

"  the  happy  night 
That  to  the  cottage  as  the  crown, 
Brought  tidings  of  salvation  down," 

that  even  the  torpid  bees  are  figured  in  its  super- 
stitions to  utter  a  voice  of  gladness,  the  music  of 
sweet  chimes  to  issue  from  the  bosom  of  the  earth, 
and  rich  harmonies  to  echo  and  high  ceremonies 
to  be  gorgeously  performed,  amid  the  hush  and 
mystery  of  buried  cells. 

We  must  not  omit  to  mention  that  these  sup- 
posed natural  testimonies  to  the  triumph  of  the 
time  have  been  in  some  places  used  as  means  of 
divination  on  a  very  curious  question.  The  change 
of  style  introduced  into  our  calendars  nearly  a  cen- 
tury ago,  and  by  which  Christmas  Day  was  displaced 
from  its  ancient  position  therein,  gave  great  dissatis- 
faction on  many  accounts,  and  on  none  more  than 
that  of  its  interference  with  this  ancient  festival. 
The  fifth  and  sixth  of  January  continued  long  to  be 
observed  as  the  true  anniversary  of  the  Nativity 
and  its  vigil ;  and  the  kneeling  of  the  cattle,  the 
humming  of  the  bees,  and  the  ringing  of  subterra- 
nean bells,  were  anxiously  watched  for  authentica- 
tions on  this  subject.  The  singular  fact  of  the 
budding  about  the  period  of  old  Christmas  Day  of 


CHRISTMAS    EVE.  283 

the  Cadenham  oak,  in  the  New  Forest  of  Hamp- 
shire, and  the  same  remarkable  feature  of  the 
Glastonbury  thorn  (explained  in  various  ways,  but 
probably  nowhere  more  satisfactorily  than  in  the 
number  for  the  31st  December,  1833,  of  the  Satur- 
day Magazine),  were  of  course  used  by  the  vulgar 
as  confirmation  of  their  own  tradition ;  and  the 
putting  forth  of  their  leaves  was  earnestly  waited 
for  as  an  unquestionable  homage  to  the  joyous 
spirit  of  the  true  period. 

We  have  already  alluded  to  the  high  ceremonies 
with  which  the  great  day  is  ushered  in  amongst  the 
Catholics,  and  to  the  beautiful  music  of  the  mid- 
night mass :  — 

"  That  only  night  of  all  the  year 
Saw  the  stoled  priest  his  chalice  rear."' 

The  reader  who  would  have  a  very  graphic  and 
striking  account  of  the  Christmas  Eve  mass,  as  per- 
formed by  torchlight  amid  the  hills  in  certain  dis- 
tricts of  Ireland,  will  find  one  in  Mr.  Carleton's 
"  Traits  and  Stories  of  the  Irish  Peasantry.'' 

We  have  also  mentioned  that  all  the  watches  of 
this  hallowed  night  shall  ring  to  the  sounds  of 
earthly  minstrelsy,  intimating,  as  best  they  may,  the 
heavenly  choirs  that  hailed  its  rising  over  Judea 
nearly  two  centuries  ago.  Not  for  the  shepherds 
alone,  was  that  song  !  Its  music  was  for  us,  as  for 
them  ;  and  all  minstrelsy,  however  rude,  is  welcome 
on  this  night  that  gives  us  any  echoes  of  it,  how- 


284  THE    BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

ever  wild.  For  us  too,  on  the  blessed  day  of 
which  this  vigil  keeps  the  door,  '-'is  born  in  the 
city  of  David,  a  Saviour,  which  is  Christ  the 
Lord ;  "  and  we  too  amid  the  sacred  services  of 
to-morrow  will  "  go  even  unto  Bethlehem,  and  see 
this  thing  which  is  come  to  pass,  which  the  Lord 
hath  made  known  to  us." 


In  furry  pall  ycla-d, 

His  "brows  etiwreaiedwithliolly  newr  sere, 

Old  CIiristma.3  coracs  to  close  eke  wamedyeaT 

iiaiii/'fyldf. 


CHRISTMAS    DAY. 

25TH  December. 


And  now  has  arrived  the  great  and  important 
(lay  itself  which  gives  its  title  to  the  whole  of  this 
happy  season,  and  the  high  and  blessed  work  of 
man's  redemption  is  begun.  The  paean  of  univer- 
sal rejoicing  swells  up  on  every  side ;  and  after 
those  religious  exercises  which  are  the  language 
that  man's  joy  should  take  first,  the  day  is  one  of 
brightened  spirits  and  general  congratulation.  In 
no  way  can  man  better  express  his  sense  of  its 
inestimable  gift  than  by  the  condition  of  mind 
that  receives  gladly,  and  gives  freely  ;  than  by  mus- 
tering his  worldly  affections,  that  he  may  renew 
them  in  the  spirit  of  the  time.  This  is  not  the 
proper  jjlace  to  speak  more  minutely  of  the  religi- 
ous sentiments  and  services  which  belong  to  the 
season  than  we  have  already  done.  We  may  mere- 
ly remark  that  the  streets  of  the  city  and  the  thou- 
sand pathways  of  the  country  are  crowded  on  this 
morning  by  rich  and  poor,  young  and  old,  coming 
in  on  all  sides,  gathering  from  all  quarters,  to  hear 


286  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

the  particulars  of  the  "  glad  tidings  "  proclaimed  ; 
and  each  lofty  cathedral  and  lowly  village  church 
sends  up  a  voice  to  join  the  mighty  chorus  whose 
glad  burthen  is  —  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest ; 
and  on  earth  peace,  good  will  toward  men." 

From  the  religious  duties  of  the  day,  we  must 
turn  at  once  to  its  secular  observances ;  and  these 
we  will  take  in  the  order,  with  reference  to  the  prog- 
ress of  its  hours,  in  which  they  come,  mingling  the 
customs  of  modern  times  with  those  of  the  past  in 
our  pages,  as,  in  many  respects,  we  wish  our  readers 
would  do  in  practice. 

The  plate  then  on  the  other  side  represents  the 
earliest,  and  not  the  least  important,  of  the  worldly 
ceremonies  of  the  day,  the  due  observance  thereof 
being  essential  to  the  due  observance  of  that  later 
ceremony  which  no  man  holds  to  be  unimportant, 
least  of  all  on  Christmas  Day,  the  dinner.  But, 
"  oh  !  Molly  Dumpling  !  oh  !  thou  cook  !  "  if  that 
clock  of  thine  be  right,  thou  art  far  behindhand 
with  thy  work  !  Thou  shouldst  have  risen  when 
thou  wast  disturbed  by  the  Waits  at  three  o'clock 
this  morning  !  To  have  discharged  thy  duty  faith- 
fully, thou  shouldst  have  consigned  that  huge 
pudding  at  least  two  hours  earlier  to  the  reeking 
caldron  !  We  are  informed  by  those  who  understand 
such  matters,  that  a  plum  pudding  of  the  ordinary 
size  requires  from  ten  to  twelve  hours  boiling ;  so 
that  a  pudding  calculated  for  the  appetites  of  such 
a  party  as  our  artist  has  assembled  further  on,  for 


Christmas  Pudding.  —  Page  286. 


CHRISTMAS    DAY.  287 

its  consumption,  and  due  regard  being  had  to  the 
somewhat  earlier  hour  than  on  days  in  general  at 
which  a  Christmas  dinner  is  commonly  discussed, 
should  have  found  its  way  into  the  boiler  certainly 
before  six  o'clock.  Molly  evidently  wants  a  word 
of  advice  from  the  ancient  bellman :  — 

"  Up,  Doll,  Peg,  Susan  !     You  all  spoke  to  me 
Betimes  to  call  you,  and  't  is  now  past  three, 
Get  up  on  your  but-ends,  and  rub  your  eyes. 
For  shame,  no  longer  lye  abed,  but  rise; 
The  pewter  still  to  scow'r  and  house  to  clean, 
And  you  abed  I  good  girls,  what  is  't  you  mean  ?  " 

On  the  subject  of  the  identity  of  the  modern 
plum  pudding  with  the  ancient  hackiti,  we  are  fur- 
nished with  the  following  curious  remarks  by  Mr. 
Crofton  Croker,  which  we  think  well  worth  submit- 
ting for  the  consideration  of  the  curious  in  such 
matters. 

''The  '  hackin,'  "  says  that  amusing  old  tract,  en- 
titled '  Round  about  our  Coal  Fire,'  "  '  must  be 
boiled  by  daybreak,  or  else  two  young  men  must 
take  the  maiden  [i.  e.,  the  cook]  by  the  arms,  and 
run  her  round  the  market-place,  till  she  is  ashamed 
of  her  laziness.'  Brand,  whose  explanation  Hone 
in  his  Every-Day  Book  has  adopted,  renders '  hackin  ' 
by  'the  great  sausage  ; '  and  Nares  tells  us,  that  the 
word  means  '  a  large  sort  of  sausage,  being  a  part 
of  the  cheer  provided  for  Christmas  festivities,'  — 
deriving  the  word  from  hack,  to  cut  or  chop. 
Agreeing     in     this   derivation,  we    do   not   admit 


288  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

Nares's  explanation.  '  Hackin,'  literally  taken,  is 
mince-meat  of  any  kind ;  but  Christmas  mince- 
meat, everybody  knows,  means  a  composition  of 
meat  and  suet  (hacked  small)  seasoned  with  fruit 
and  spices.  And  from  the  passage  above  quoted, 
that  '  the  hackin  must  be  boiled,  i.  e.,  boiling,  by 
daybreak,'  it  is  obvious  the  worthy  archdeacon 
who,  as  well  as  Brand  and  Hone,  has  explained 
it  as  a  great  sausage,  did  not  see  that  '  hackin  '  is 
neither  more  nor  less  than  the  old  name  for  the 
national  English  dish  of  plum  pudding. 

"  We  have  heard  first-rate  authorities  upon  this 
subject  assert,  the  late  Dr.  Kitchener  and  Mr. 
Douce  were  amongst  the  number,  that  plum  pud- 
ding, the  renowned  English  plum  pudding,  was  a 
dish  comparatively  speaking  of  modern  invention  ; 
and  that  plum  porridge  was  its  ancient  representa- 
tive. But  this,  for  the  honor  of  England,  we  never 
would  allow,  and  always  fought  a  hard  battle  upon 
the  point.  Brand  indeed  devotes  a  section  of  his 
observations  on  popular  antiquities  to  'Yule-doughs, 
mince-pies,  Christmas-pies,  and  plum  porridge,' 
omitting  plum  pudding,  which  new  Christmas  dish, 
or  rather  new  name  for  an  old  Christmas  dish,  ap- 
pears to  have  been  introduced  with  the  reign  of  the 
'  merry  monarch,'  Charles  II.  A  revolution  always 
creates  a  change  in  manners,  fashions,  tastes,  and 
names ;  and  our  theory  is  that,  among  other  changes, 
the  *  hackin'  of  our  ancestors  was  then  baptized  plum 
pudding      In  Poor  Robin's  Almanack  for  1676,  it 


CHRISTMAS    DAY.  289 

is  observed  of  Christmas,  —  '  Good  cheer  doth  so 
abound  as  if  all  the  world  were  made  of  minced- 
pies,  plum  pudding,  and  furmity.'  And  we  might 
produce  other  quotations  to  show  that,  as  the 
name  '  hackin  '  fell  into  disuse  about  this  period, 
it  was  generally  supplanted  by  that  of  plum 
pudding." 

Plum  pudding  is  a  truly  national  dish,  and  re- 
fuses to  flourish  out  of  England.  It  can  obtain  no 
footing  in  France.  A  Frenchman  will  dress  like 
an  Englishman,  swear  like  an  Englishman,  and  get 
drunk  like  an  Englishman ;  but  if  you  would  offend 
him  forever,  compel  him  to  eat  plum  pudding.  A 
few  of  the  leading  restaurateurs ,  wishing  to  appear 
extraordinary,  have  plomb-pooding  upon  their  cartes  ; 
but  in  no  instance  is  it  ever  ordered  by  a  French- 
man. Everybody  has  heard  the  story  of  Saint  Louis 
—  Henri  Quatre,  —  or  whoever  else  it  might  be  — 
who,  wishing  to  regale  the  English  ambassador  on 
Christmas  Day  with  a  plum  pudding,  procured  an 
excellent  receipt  for  making  one,  which  he  gave 
to  his  cook  with  strict  injunctions  that  it  should  be 
prepared  with  due  attention  to  all  particulars.  The 
weight  of  the  ingredients,  the  size  of  the  copper, 
the  quantity  of  water,  the  duration  of  time,  —  every- 
thing was  attended  to,  except  one  trifle ;  the  king 
forgot  the  cloth ;  and  the  pudding  was  served  up 
like  so  much  soup,  in  immense  tureens,  to  the 
surprise  of  the  ambassador,  who  was,  however,  too 
well-bred  to  express  his  astonishment. 
19 


290  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

Amongst  our  ancestors,  the  duties  of  the  day 
which  followed  first  after  those  of  religion  were  the 
duties  which  immediately  spring  out  of  a  religion 
like  ours,  —  those  of  charit}^ 

"  When 
Among  their  children,  comfortable  men 
Gather  about  great  fires,  and  yet  feel  cold, 
Alas  !  then  for  the  houseless  beggar  old  !  " 

was  a  sentiment  of  which  they  never  allowed  them- 
selves to  lose  sight.  Amid  the  preparations  making 
for  his  own  enjoyment,  and  the  comforts  by  which 
he  set  at  defiance  the  austerities  of  the  season,  the 
old  English  gentleman  did  not  forget  the  affecting 
truths  so  beautifully  embodied  in  words  by  Mary 
Howitt :  — 

"  In  rich  men's  halls,  the  fire  is  piled. 
And  ermine  robes  keep  out  the  weather  ; 
In  poor  men's  huts,  the  fire  is  low, 
Through  broken  panes  the  keen  winds  blow, 
And  old  and  young  are  cold  together. 

"  Oh  !  poverty  is  disconsolate  ! 
Its  pains  are  many,  its  foes  are  strong ! 
The  rich  man,  in  his  jovial  cheer, 
Wishes  't  was  winter  through  the  year  ; 
The  poor  man,  'mid  his  wants  profound, 
With  all  his  little  children  round. 
Prays  God  that  winter  be  not  long  !  " 

Immediately  after  the  services  of  the  day,  the  coun- 
try gentleman  stood  of  old,  at  his  own  gate  (as 
we  have  represented  him  at  page  109),  and  super- 


.^ 


"     P  P'ii  I  'nil 
i'llP  ! 


CHRISTMAS    DAY.  29I 

intended  the  distribution  of  alms  to  the  aged  and 
the  destitute.  The  hall,  prepared  for  the  festival  of 
himself  and  his  friends,  was  previously  opened  to 
his  tenants  and  retainers ;  and  the  good  things  of 
the  season  were  freely  dispensed  to  all.  "  There 
was  once,"  says  the  writer  of "  Round  about  our 
Coal  Fire,"  "  hospitality  in  the  land.  An  English 
gentleman  at  the  opening  of  the  great  day  had  all 
his  tenants  and  neighbors  enter  his  hall  by  day- 
break ;  the  strong  beer  was  broached,  and  the 
black-jacks  went  plentifully  about,  with  toast,  sugar, 
nutmeg,  and  good  Cheshire  cheese.  .  .  .  The 
servants  were  then  running  here  and  there  with 
merry  hearts  and  jolly  countenances.  Every  one 
was  busy  in  welcoming  of  guests,  and  looked  as 
snug  as  new-licked  puppies.  The  lasses  were  as 
blithe  and  buxom  as  the  maids  in  good  Queen 
Bess's  days,  when  they  ate  sirloins  of  roast-beef  for 
breakfast.  Peg  would  scuttle  about  to  make  a  toast 
for  John,  while  Tom  run  hartim-scaruvi  to  draw  a 
jug  of  ale  for  Margery." 

Of  this  scene  we  have  given  a  representation  at 
page  42  ;  and  much  of  this  ancient  spirit,  we  hope 
and  believe,  still  survives  in  this  Christian  country. 
The  solemn  festivals  of  ancient  superstition  were 
marked  either  by  bloody  sacrifice,  secret  revelling, 
or  open  licentiousness.  There  was  no  celebration 
of  rites,  real  or  symbolical,  which  might  become  a 
religion  of  cheerfulness,  decency,  and  mercy.  There 
was  no  medium  between  a  mysteriousness  dark  and 


292  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

gloomy  as  the  grave,  and  a  wild  and  savage  enthu- 
siasm or  riotous  frenzy,  which  mingled  with  the 
worship  of  the  gods  the  impassioned  depravity  of 
human  nature.  From  Moloch,  upon  whose  dreadful 
altar  children  were  offered,  to  Bacchus,  at  whose 
shrine  reason  and  virtue  were  prostrated,  there 
were  none  of  the  fabled  deities  of  antiquity  whose 
service  united  the  spirit  of  devotion  with  innocent 
pleasures  and  the  exercise  of  the  domestic  chari- 
ties. This  was  reserved  for  the  Christian  religion, 
one  of  the  marks  of  whose  divinity  it  is  that  it  can 
mingle  with  many  of  the  pleasures,  and  all  the 
virtues  of  the  world,  without  sullying  the  purity  of 
its  glory,  —  without  depressing  the  sublime  elevation 
of  its  character.  The  rites  of  Ceres  were  thought 
profaned  if  the  most  virtuous  believer  of  the  divin- 
ity of  that  goddess  beheld  them  without  having 
undergone  the  ceremonies  of  special  initiation. 
The  worship  of  Saturn  gave  rise  to  a  liberty  incon- 
sistent with  the  ordinary  government  of  states.  At 
the  altar  of  Diana,  on  certain  days,  the  Spartans 
flogged  children  to  death.  And  the  offerings  which 
on  state  occasions  the  Romans  made  to  Jupiter, 
were  such  as  feudal  vassals  might  offer  to  their 
warlike  lord.  But  now,  thank  God  !  —  to  use  the 
words  of  Milton's   Hymn  on  the   Nativity,  — 

"  Peor  and  Baalim 
Forsake  their  temples  dim, 

With  that  twice-batter'd  God  of  Palestine  ; 
And  mooned  Ashtaroth 


CHRISTMAS    DAY.  293 

Heaven's  queen  and  mother  both, 
Now  sits  not  girt  with  tapers'  holy  shine; 
The  Lybick  Hammon  shrinks  his  horn ; 
In  vain  the  Tyrian  maids  their  wounded  Thammuz  mourn. 

"  And  sullen  Moloch,  fled, 
Has  left  in  shadows  dread 

His  burning  idol  all  of  blackest  hue ; 
In  vain  with  cymbals'  ring, 
They  call  the  grisly  king. 

In  dismal  dance  about  the  furnace  blue : 
The  brutish  Gods  of  Nile  as  fast, 
Iris,  and  Orus,  and  the  dog  Anubis  haste. 

"  Nor  is  Osiris  seen 
In  Memphian  grove  or  green. 

Trampling  the  unshowered  grass  with  lowings  loud ; 
Nor  can  he  be  at  rest. 
Within  his  sacred  chest ; 

Nought  but  profoundest  hell  can  be  his  shroud. 
In  vain,  with  timbrelled  anthems  dark, 
The  sable-stoled  sorcerers  bear  his  worshipp'd  ark. 

"  He  feels  from  Judah's  land 
The  dreaded  Infant's  hand; 

The  rays  of  Bethlehem  blind  his  dusky  eyne ; 
Nor  all  the  gods  beside 
Longer  dare  abide  ; 

Not  Typhon  huge,  ending  in  snaky  twine : 
Our  Babe,  to  show  his  God-head  true, 
Can  in  his  swaddling  bands  control  the  damned  crew." 

Oh  !  how  different  were  those  religions  of  the 
passions  and  the  senses  from  that  of  the  sentiments 
and  pure  affections  of  the  Christian  heart ;  which, 
as  it  rises  to  heaven  in  subUme  devotion,  expands 
in  charity  towards  its  kind,  until  it  comprehends  all 


294  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

humanity  in  the  bond  of  universal  benevolence.  To 
ameliorate  the  temporal,  as  well  as  elevate  the  spir- 
itual state  of  man,  is  its  distinguishing  excellence, 
the  sublime  peculiarity  of  its  character  as  a  religious 
dispensation.  All  the  systems  of  superstition  were 
external  and  gross,  or  mysterious  and  occult.  They 
either  encouraged  the  follies  and  the  passions  of 
men,  or  by  a  vain  and  fruitless  knowledge  flattered 
their  vanity.  But  Christianity  came  to  repress  the 
one  and  to  dissipate  the  other;  to  make  the  ex- 
ercise of  the  virtues  the  result  and  the  proof  of 
mental  attachment  to  the  doctrines  which,  while 
they  afford  grand  subjects  of  eternal  interest,  con- 
tain the  principles  of  all  true  civilization.  It  is 
in  this  religion  alone  that  faith  is  the  sister  of 
charity ;  that  the  former  brightens  with  the  beams 
of  another  world  the  institutions  by  which  the  lat- 
ter blesses  this,  —  those  institutions  of  mercy  and  of 
instruction  which  cover  the  land  with  monuments 
of  humanity  that  are  nowhere  to  be  found  but 
among  the  temples  of  our  faith. 

And  now,  wheij  silent  and  desolate  are  even 
the  high  places  over  which  Augustus  ruled,  fallen 
majestic  Rome  with  all  her  gods,  the  religion  pro- 
claimed to  the  humble  shepherds,  whose  sound 
was  first  heard  by  the  moonlight  streams  and  under 
the  green  boughs,  has  erected  on  the  ruins  of 
ancient  grandeur  a  sublimer  dominion  than  all 
those  principalities  of  the  earth  which  refused  its 
hospitality.     It  came  in   gentleness   and   lowliness 


CHRISTMAS    DAY.  295 

and  the  spirit  of  peace ;  and  now  it  grasps  the 
power  of  the  universe,  and  wields  the  civilized  en- 
ergies of  the  greatest  of  all  the  nations  to  the  benefi- 
cent extension  of  its  authority,  —  imperishable  in  its 
glory,  and  bloodless  in  its  triumphs  ! 

On  the  opposite  side,  our  artist  has  given  a  lively 
and  correct  representation  of  the  high  festival  an- 
ciently celebrated  on  Christmas  Day  in  the  old 
baronial  hall ;  and  has  presented  it  at  that  im- 
])ortant  moment  when  the  procession  of  the  boar's 
head  is  making  its  way,  with  the  customary  cere- 
monies, to  the  upper  table.  Our  account  of  Christ- 
mas would  not  be  complete  without  some  notice  of 
this  grand  dish  at  the  feasts  of  our  ancestors,  and 
some  description  of  the  forms  which  attended  its 
introduction. 

The  boar's  head  soused,  then,  was  carried  into 
the  great  hall  with  much  state,  preceded  by  the 
Master  of  the  Revels,  and  followed  by  choristers 
and  minstrels,  singing  and  playing  compositions  in 
its  honor.  Dugdale  relates  that  at  the  Inner 
Temple,  for  the  first  course  of  the  Christmas  din- 
ner, was  "  served  in,  a  fair  and  large  bore's  head 
upon  a  silver  platter,  with  minstrelsye."  And  here 
we  would  observe,  what  we  do  not  think  has  been 
before  remarked,  that  the  boar's  head  carols  appear 
to  have  systematically  consisted  of  three  verses.  A 
manuscript  indeed  which  we  once  met  with,  stated 
that  the  "  caroll,  upon  the  bringynge  in  of  the  bore's 
head,  was  sung  to  the  glorie  of  the  blessed  Triny- 


296  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

tie ;  "  and  the  three  subsequent  illustrative  speci- 
mens —  in  which  the  peculiarity  mentioned  may  be 
observed  —  tend  to  confirm  this  notion.  At  St. 
John's,  Oxford,  in  1607,  before  the  bearer  of  the 
boar's  head  —  who  was  selected  for  his  height  and 
lustiness,  and  wore  a  green  silk  scarf,  with  an  empty 
sword-scabbard  dangling  at  his  side  —  went  a  run- 
ner dressed  in  a  horseman's  coat,  having  a  boar's 
spear  in  his  hand,  a  huntsman  in  green  carrying  the 
naked  and  bloody  sword  belonging  to  the  head- 
bearer's  scabbard,  and  "  two  pages  in  tafatye  sar- 
cenet," each  with  a  "  mess  of  mustard."  Upon 
which  occasion  these  verses  were  sung  :  — 

"  The  boare  is  dead, 
Loe,  heare  is  his  head, 

What  man  could  have  done  more 
Then  his  head  of  to  strike, 
Meleager  like, 
And  bringe  it  as  I  doe  before  ? 

"He  livinge  spoyled 
Where  good  men  toyled. 

Which  made  kinde  Ceres  sorryej 
But  now,  dead  and  drawne, 
Is  very  good  brawne, 

And  wee  have  brought  it  for  ye. 

"  Then  sett  downe  the  swineyard. 
The  foe  to  the  vineyard, 

Lett  Bacchus  crowne  his  fall ; 
Lett  this  boare's  head  and  mustard 
Stand  for  pigg,  goose,  and  custard, 

And  so  vou  are  welcome  all  " 


CHRISTMAS   DAY.  297 

So  important  was  the  office  of  boar's-head  bearer 
considered  to  be,  that,  in  1170,  Holinshed  has 
chronicled  the  circumstance  of  England's  king, 
Henry  II.,  bringing  up  to  the  table  of  his  son,  the 
young  prince,  a  boar's  head,  with  trumpeters  going 
before  him.  From  this  species  of  service  it  is 
probable  that  many  of  our  heraldic  bearings  have 
originated.  "  The  ancient  crest  of  the  family  of 
FMgecumbe,"  observes  Ritson,  "was  the  boar's  head 
crowned  with  bays  upon  a  charger ;  which,"  he 
adds,  "  has  been  very  injudiciously  changed  into 
the   entire   animal." 

This  same  diligent  arranger  and  illustrator  of 
our  old  ballads  gives  us,  in  his  collection  of  ancient 
songs,  a  Boar's-head  Carol,  which  probably  belongs 
to  the  fourteenth  century,  from  a  manuscript  in  his 
possession,  —  now,  we  beheve,  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum. 

In  die  nativitatis, 

"  Nowell,  nowel],  nowell,  nowell, 

Tydyngs  gode  y  thyngke  to  telle. 
The  borys  hade  that  we  bryng  here, 
Be  tokeneth  a  prince  with  owte  pere, 
Ys  born  this  day  to  bye  vs  dere, 

Nowell. 
"  A  bore  ys  a  souerayn  beste, 
And  acceptable  in  every  feste. 
So  mote  thys  lorde  be  to  moste  &  leste, 
Nowell. 
"  This:  borys  hede  we  bryng  with  song, 
In  worchyp  of  hym  that  thus  sprang 
Of  a  virgyne  to  redresse  all  wrong, 

Nowell." 


298  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

The  printing-press  of  Wynkyn  de  Worde  has 
preserved  to  us  the  carol  believed  to  have  been 
generally  used,  prior  to  15  21,  upon  these  occasions  ; 
a  modernized  version  of  which  continues  to  be  sung 
in  Queen's  College,  Oxford.  It  is  entitled  "  A 
Caroll  bringyne  in  the  Bores  heed;"  and  runs 
thus : — 

"  Caput  apri  defero 

Reddens  laudes  Domino, 
The  bore's  heade  in  hande  bring  I 
With  garlandes  gay  and  rosemary, 
I  pray  you  all  synge  merely, 

Qui  estis  in  convivio. 

"  The  bore's  head  I  understande 
Is  the  chefe  servyce  in  this  lande, 
Loke  wherever  it  be  fande, 
Servite  cum  cantico. 

"  Be  gladde,  lordes  both  more  and  lasse. 
For  this  hath  ordayned  our  stewarde, 
To  chere  you  all  this  Christmasse, 
The  bore's  head  with  mustarde." 

A  tradition  of  the  same  college  states  the  intro- 
duction there  of  the  boar's  head  (which  according 
to  Ritson,  is  now  a  mere  representation  "  neatly 
carved  in  wood  ")  to  be  contrived  "  as  a  commemo- 
ration of  an  act  of  valor  performed  by  a  student 
of  the  college,  who  while  walking  in  the  neigh- 
boring forest  of  Shotover,  and  reading  Aristotle, 
was  suddenly  attacked  by  a  wild  boar.  The  furious 
beast  came  open-mouthed  upon  the  youth ;  who, 
however,  very  courageously,  and  with  a  happy  pres- 


CHRISTMAS    DAY.  299 

ence  of  mind,  is  said  to  have  rammed  in  the 
volume,  and  cried  grcecum  est,  fairly  choking  the 
savage  with  the  sage."  To  this  legend  a  humorous 
"song  in  honor  of  the  Boar's  head  at  Queen's 
College,  Oxford,"  refers,  having  for  its  motto,  Tain 
Marti  quam  Mer curio,  but  for  which  we  cannot 
afford  space. 

The  ancient  mode  of  garnishing  the  boar's  head 
was  with  sprigs  of  sweet-scented  herbs.  Dekker, 
than  whom  we  could  not  name  a  more  appropriate 
authority  on  this  subject,  speaking  of  persons 
apprehensive  of  catching  the  plague,  says,  "  They 
went  (most  bitterly)  miching  and  muffled  up  and 
down,  with  rue  and  wormwood  stuft  into  their  eares 
and  nostrils,  looking  like  so  many  bore's  heads, 
stuck  with  branches  of  rosemary,  to  be  served  in 
for  brawne  at  Christmas."  The  following  lines 
describe  the  manner  of  serving  up  this  famous 
dish  :  — 

"  if  you  would  send  up  the  brawner's  head, 

Sweet  rosemary  and  bays  around  it  spread ; 
His  foaming  tusks  let  some  large  pippin  grace, 
Or  'midst  these  thundering  spears  an  orange  place ; 
Sauce  like  himself,  offensive  to  its  foes, 
The  roguish  mustard,  dangerous  to  the  nose ; 
Sack,  and  the  well  spiced  hippocras,  the  wine 
Wassail,  the  bowl  with  ancient  ribands  fine, 
Porridge  with  plums,  and  Turkeys,  with  the  chine." 

Sack  and  hippocras  are  no  longer  to  be  found  in 
our  cellars ;  but,  as  we  have  shown,  we  still  com- 
pound the  wassail-bowl. 


300  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

The  Christmas  dinner  of  modern  days  is,  as 
most  of  our  readers  know,  a  gathering  together  of 
generations,  an  assembling  of  Israel  by  its  tribes. 
In  the  one  before  us,  the  artist  has  given  a  pretty 
extensive  muster.  We  have  them  of  the  seven  ages 
and  the  several  professions.  Contrast  with  this 
modern  Christmas  dinner,  as  well  as  with  the  high 
festival  of  yore,  the  dreary  picture  of  a  Christmas 
Day  and  dinner,  under  the  stern  prescription  of  the 
Puritans,  as  given  in  his  Diary,  by  Pepys,  the  chatty 
secretary  to  the  Admiralty.  "  1668,  Christmas-day. 
To  dinner,"  thus  he  writes,  "  alone  with  my  wife ; 
who,  poor  wretch  !  sat  undressed  all  day  till  ten  at 
night,  altering  and  lacing  of  a  noble  petticoat ;  while 
I,  by  her,  making  the  boy  read  to  me  the  life  of 
Julius  Caesar  and  Des  Cartes'  book  of  Music." 

To  the  heads  of  the  very  respectable  family 
before  us,  we  have  already  been  introduced,  in  an 
earlier  part  of  this  volume,  and  are  glad  to  meet 
with  them  again,  under  circumstances  so  auspicious, 
and  supported  by  their  junior  branches.  In  a  family 
so  flourishing,  we  might  have  expected  to  escape 
the  exhibition  of  antiquated  celibacy.  But,  no  ! 
that  is  clearly  an  old  maid,  who  is  hobnobbing 
with  the  gentleman  in  the  foreground,  and,  we  must 
say.  there  is  something  about  him  which  carries  a 
strong  suspicion  of  old-bachelorship.  We  suppose 
the  one  and  the  other  are  to  be  found  in  most 
families.  However,  they  are  not  the  parties  who 
least  enjoy  this  sort  of  reunions.     We  fancy,  it  is 


CHRISTMAS    DAY.  30I 

known  to  most  people  that  meetings  of  this  descrip- 
tion are  very  happy  ones  amongst  the  members  of  a 
family,  and  remarkably  uninteresting  to  third  parties. 
We  should  certainly  prefer  reading  Des  Cartes,  with 
Pepys  and  his  wife,  to  finding  ourselves  a  "  for- 
eigner "  in  such  a  group  as  the  present. 

But  the  best  of  the  day  is  yet  to  come  !  and  we 
should  have  no  objection  to  join  the  younger  mem- 
bers of  that  group  in  the  merry  sports  that  await 
the  evening.  We  need  not  give  the  programme. 
It  is  like  that  of  all  the  other  Christmas  nights.  The 
blazing  fire,  the  song,  the  dance,  the  riddle,  the  jest, 
and  many  another  merry  sport,  are  of  its  spirits. 
Mischief  will  be  committed  under  the  mistletoe- 
bough,  and  all  the  good  wishes  of  the  season  sent 
round  under  the  sanction  of  the  wassail-bowl. 


ST,    STEPHEN'S   DAY. 

26th  December. 


This  day,  which,  in  our  calendar,  is  still  dedicated 
to  the  first  Christian  martyr,  St.  Stephen  (for  John 
the  Baptist  perished  in  the  same  cause  before  the 
consummation  of  the  old  law  and  the  full  intro- 
duction of  the  Christian  dispensation),  is  more 
popularly  known  by  the  title  of  Boxing-day ;  and  its 
importance  amongst  the  Christmas  festivities  is  de- 
rived from  the  practice  whence  that  title  comes. 

We  have  already  mentioned  that  the  custom  of 
bestowing  gifts  at  seasons  of  joyous  commemora- 
tion, has  been  a  form  of  thankfulness  at  most 
periods ;  and  that  it  may  have  been  directly  bor- 
rowed, by  the  Christian  worshippers,  from  the  poly- 
theists  of  Rome,  along  with  those  other  modes  of 
celebration  which  descended  to  the  Christmas  festi- 
val from  that  source,  —  introduced,  however,  amongst 
our  own  observances,  under  Scripture  sanctions, 
drawn  both  from  the  old  and  new  Testaments. 
The  particular  form  of  that  practice  whose  dona- 
tions are   known   by  the    title  of  Christmas-boxes 


^3 


ST.    STEPHEN  S    DAY.  303 

(and  which  appear  to  differ  from  New-year's  gifts 
in  this,  that  the  former,  passing  from  the  rich  to  the 
poor  and  from  the  master  to  his  dependants,  are 
not  reciprocal  in  their  distribution,  whereas  the  lat- 
ter are  those  gifts,  for  the  mutual  expression  of 
goodwill  and  congratulation,  which  are  exchanged 
between  friends  and  acquaintances),  was,  perhaps, 
originally  one  of  the  observances  of  Christmas  Day, 
and  made  a  portion  of  its  charities.  The  multiplied 
business  of  that  festival,  however,  probably  caused 
it  to  be  postponed  till  the  day  following,  and  thereby 
placed  the  Christmas-boxes  under  the  patronage  of 
St.  Stephen.  The  title  itself  has  been  derived,  by 
some,  from  the  box  which  was  kept  on  board  of 
every  vessel  that  sailed  upon  a  distant  voyage,  for 
the  reception  of  donations  to  the  priest,  —  who.  in 
return,  was  expected  to  offer  masses  for  the  safety 
of  the  expedition,  to  the  particular  saint  having 
charge  of  the  ship,  —  and  above  all,  of  the  box. 
This  box  was  not  to  be  opened  till  the  return  of  the 
vessel ;  and  we  can  conceive  that,  in  cases  where 
the  mariners  had  had  a  perilous  time  of  it,  this  cas- 
ket would  be  found  to  enclose  a  tolerable  offering. 
Probably  the  state  of  the  box  might  be  as  good  an 
evidence  as  the  log-book,  of  the  character  of  the 
voyage  which  had  been  achieved.  The  mass  was 
at  that  time  called  Christmass,  and  the  boxes  kept 
to  pay  for  it  were,  of  course,  called  Christmass-boxes. 
The  poor,  amongst  those  who  had  an  interest  in  the 
fate  of  these  ships,  or  of  those  who  sailed  in  them, 


304  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

were  in  the  habit  of  begging  money  from  the  rich, 
that  they  might  contribute  to  the  mass  boxes  ;  and 
hence  the  title  which  has  descended  to  our  day, 
giving  to  the  anniversary  of  St.  Stephen's  martyrdom 
the  title  of  Christmas-boxing  day,  and,  by  corrup- 
tion, its  present  popular  one  of  Boxing-day. 

A  relic  of  these  ancient  boxes  yet  exists  in  the 
earthen  or  wooden  box,  with  a  slit  in  it,  which  still 
bears  the  same  name,  and  is  carried  by  servants 
and  children  for  the  purpose  of  gathering  money, 
at  this  season,  being  broken  only  when  the  period 
of  collection  is  supposed  to  be  over. 

Most  of  our  readers  know  that  it  was  the  practice, 
not  many  years  ago  (and  in  some  places  is  so  still), 
for  families  to  keep  lists  of  the  servants,  of  trades- 
men and  others,  who  were  considered  to  have  a 
claim  upon  them  for  a  Christmas-box,  at  this  time. 
The  practice,  besides  opening  a  door  to  great  ex- 
tortion, is  one  in  every  way  of  considerable  annoy- 
ance, and  is  on  the  decline.  There  is,  however, 
as  they  who  are  exposed  to  it  know,  some  danger 
in  setting  it  at  defiance,  where  it  is  yet  in  force. 
One  of  the  most  amusing  circumstances  arising  out 
of  this  determination  to  evade  the  annoyances  of 
Boxing-day,  is  related  by  Sandys.  A  person  in  trade 
had  imprudently  given  directions  that  he  should  be 
denied,  on  this  day,  to  all  applicants  for  money ; 
and  amongst  those  who  presented  themselves  at  his 
door,  on  this  errand,  was  unfortunately  a  rather  im- 
portunate creditor.     In  the  height  of  his  indignation 


ST.    STEPHEN  S    DAY.  305 

at  being  somewhat  uncourteously  repulsed,  he  imme- 
diately consulted  his  lawyer,  and,  having  done  that, 
we  need  scarcely  relate  the  catastrophe.  It  follows 
as  a  matter  of  course.  A  docket  was  struck  against 
the  unsuspecting  victim  of  Christmas-boxophobia. 

Boxing-day,  however,  is  still  a  great  day  in  Lon- 
don. Upon  this  anniversary,  every  street  resounds 
with  the  clang  of  hall-door  knockers.  Rap  follows 
rap,  in  rap\^  succession,  the  harsh  and  discordant 
tones  of  iron  mingling  with  those  of  rich  and  sonor- 
ous brass,  and  giving  a  degenerate  imitation  of  the 
brazen  clangor  of  the  trumpet,  which  formed  the 
summons  to  the  gate  in  days  of  old,  and  which, 
together  with  the  martial  music  of  the  drum,  ap- 
pears to  have  been  adopted,  at  a  later  period, 
by  the  Christmas-boxers,  on  St.  Stephen's  Day. 
Pepys,  in  his  Diary  (1668),  records  his  having  been 
"  called  up  by  drums  and  trumpets ;  these  things 
and  boxes,"  he  adds,  "  have  cost  me  much  money 
this  Christmas,  and  will  do  more."  Which  passage 
seems  to  have  been  in  the  memory  of  our  facetious 
publisher,  when  he  made  the  following  entry  in  his 
journal  of  last  year,  from  whence  we  have  taken  the 
liberty  of  transcribing  it.  "  Called  out,"  says 
Spooner  (1834),  "by  the  parish  beadle,  dustmen, 
and  charity-boys.  The  postman,  street-sweepers, 
chimney-sweepers,  lamp-lighters,  and  waits  will  all 
be  sure  to  wait  upon  me.  I'hese  fellows  have  cost 
me  much  money  this  Christmas,  and  will  do  more, 
the  next." 


3o6  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

There  is  an  amusing  account,  given  by  a  writer 
of  the  querulous  class,  of  a  boxing-day  in  London, 
a  century  ago.  "  By  the  time  I  was  up,"  says  he, 
"  my  servants  could  do  nothing  but  run  to  the  door. 
Inquiring  the  meaning,  I  was  answered,  the  people 
were  come  for  their  Christmas-box  :  this  was  logic 
to  me ;  but  I  found  at  last  that,  because  I  had  laid 
out  a  great  deal  of  ready-money  with  my  brewer, 
baker,  and  other  tradesmen,  they  kindly  thought  it 
my  duty  to  present  their  servants  with  some  money, 
for  the  favor  of  having  their  goods.  This  provoked 
me  a  little,  but  being  told  it  was  the  '  custom,'  I 
complied.  These  were  followed  by  the  watch, 
beadles,  dustmen,  and  an  innumerable  tribe ;  but 
what  vexed  me  the  most  was  the  clerk,  who  has  an 
extraordinary  place,  and  makes  as  good  an  appear- 
ance as  most  tradesmen  in  the  parish  ;  to  see  him 
come  a-boxing,  alias,  a-begging,  I  thought  was  in- 
tolerable ;  however  I  found  it  was  '  the  custom,' 
too  ;  so  I  gave  him  lialf-a-crown,  as  I  was  likewise 
obliged  to  do  to  the  bellman,  for  breaking  my  rest 
for  many  nights  together." 

The  manner  in  which  the  beadle  approaches  his 
"good  masters  and  mistresses,"  for  a  Christmas- 
box,  particularly  in  the  villages  near  the  British 
metropolis,  is,  as  we  have  before  said,  by  the  presen- 
tation of  a  copy  of  printed  verses,  ornamented  with 
wood  engravings.  These  broadsides  are  usually 
termed  "  Bellman's  verses  ; "  and  we  quite  agree 
with  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt  in  his  opinion,  that  "good 


ST.  Stephen's  day.  307 

bellman's  verses  will  not  do  at  all.  There  have 
been,"  he  remarks,  "  some  such  things  of  late  '  most 
tolerable  and  not  to  be  endured.'  We  have  seen 
them  witty,  which  is  a  great  mistake.  Warton  and 
Cowper  unthinkingly  set  the  way."  "The  very 
absurdity  of  the  bellman's  verses  is  only  pleasant, 
nay,  only  bearable,  when  we  suppose  them  written 
by  some  actual  doggrel-poet,  in  good  faith.  Mere 
mediocrity  hardly  allows  us  to  give  our  Christmas- 
box,  or  to  believe  it  now-a-days  in  earnest ;  and  the 
smartness  of  your  cleverest  wordly-wise  men  is  felt 
to  be  wholly  out  of  place.  No,  no !  give  us  the 
good  old  decrepit  bellman's  verses,  hobbling  as  their 
bringer,  and  taking  themselves  for  something  re- 
spectable, like  his  cocked-hat,  —  or  give  us  none  at 
all." 

Upon  the  bellman's  verses  which  were  last  year 
circulated  by  the  beadles  of  Putney,  Chiswick,  and 
other  parishes  on  the  west  side  of  London,  it  was 
recorded,  that  they  were  "  first  printed  in  the  year 
1735,"  and  our  curiosity  induced  us  to  inquire  of 
the  printer  the  number  annually  consumed.  "  We 
used,  sir,"  said  he,  "  not  many  years  ago,  to  print 
ten  thousand  copies,  and  even  more,  but  now  I 
suppose  we  don't  print  above  three  thousand." 
Whether  the  trade  of  this  particular  dealer  in 
bellman's  verses  has  passed  into  other  hands,  or 
whether  the  encouragement  given  to  the  circulation 
of  these  broadsides  has  declined,  the  statement  of 
an  individual  will  not  of  course  enable  us  to  de- 


3o8  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

termine.  But  we  are  inclined  to  think  that,  like 
other  old  Christmas  customs,  the  popularity  of  bell- 
man's verses  is  passing  away,  and  that,  before 
many  years  have  elapsed,  penny  magazines  and 
unstamped  newspapers  will  have  completely  super- 
seded these  relics  of  the  rude,  but  sincere,  piety  of 
our  ancestors. 

The  claims  of  dustmen  to  be  remembered  upon 
"  Boxing-day  "  were  formerly  urged,  without  literary 
pretensions  ;  but  now  "  the  march  of  intellect "  has 
rendered  it  necessary  for  them  to  issue  their  ad- 
dresses in  print.  One  of  these,  which  lies  before 
us,  represents  that  "  the  United  Association  of  Dust- 
men and  Scavengers,  of  the  Parish  of have 

the  honor  to  pay  their  humble  duty  and  respects  to 
the  good  \_Master  or  Mistress'\  of  this  house,  and 
to  solicit  a  Christmas  mark  of  approbation  of  their 
unwearied  exertions,  which  they  flatter  themselves 
conduce  so  eminently  to  the  comfort  and  salubrity 
of  the  greatest  metropolitan  city  of  civilized  Europe." 
Here,  however,  is  another,  in  which  the  spirit  of  St. 
Stephen's  Day  is  embittered  by  the  rivalries  of  busi- 
ness ;  and  the  harmony  of  those  two  respectable 
bodies,  the  scavengers  and  dustmen,  appears  to 
have  been  disturbed.  The  dustmen,  it  will  be  seen, 
repudiate  the  scavengers,  and  appeal  to  Saint  Ste- 
phen on  a  separate  interest. 

"  To  the  Worthy  Inhabitants  of  the  Southampton  Estate. 

"  Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  —  At  this  season,  when 
you  are  pleased  to  give  to  laboring  men,  employed 


ST.  Stephen's  day.  309 

in  collecting  your  dust,  a  donation  called  Christ- 
mas-box, advantage  of  which  is  often  taken  by 
persons  assuming  the  name  of  Dustmen,  obtaining 
under  false  pretences  your  bounty,  we  humbly  sub- 
mit to  your  consideration,  to  prevent  such  imposi- 
tion, to  bestow  no  gift  on  any  not  producing  a  brass 
figure  of  the  following  description,  —  A  Scotch  Fifer, 
French  horn,  etc.,  between  his  legs ;  James  Dee 
and  Jerry  Cane;  Southampton  Paving  Act,  on  the 
bell ;  Contractor,  Thomas  Salisbury. 

"  No  connection  with  scavengers.  Please  not  to 
return  this  bill  to  any  one." 

The  principal  Wait  also  leaves  a  notice  of  a 
more  imposing  description,  stating  a  regular  ap- 
pointment to  the  office  by  warrant  and  admission, 
with  all  the  ancient  forms  of  the  City  and  Liberty 
of  Westminster;  and  bears  a  silver  badge  and 
chain,  with  the  arms  of  that  city. 

We  cannot  dismiss  the  various  modes  of  collect- 
ing Christmas-boxes,  without  a  few  words  upon  the 
pieces  of  writing  carried  about  by  parish  boys,  and 
which  once  presented  the  only  evidence  that  the 
schoolmaster  was  abroad.  It  appears  formerly  to 
have  been  the  practice  at  this  season  to  hang  up 
in  our  churches  the  work  of  the  most  skilful  pen- 
man in  the  parish,  after  it  had  been  generally  ex- 
hibited ;  the  subject  of  which  was  the  life  of  some 
saint,  or  other  religious  legend.  Pepys  thus  men- 
tions the  custom:  —  ''26  December,  1665.  Saw 
some  fine  writing  work  and  flourishmg  of  Mr.  Hore, 


3IO  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

with  one  that  I  knew  long  ago,  an  acquaintance  of 
Mr.  Tomson's  at  Westminster,  that,  is  this  man's 
clerk.  It  is  the  story  of  the  several  Archbishops 
of  Canterbury,  engrossed  on  vellum,  to  hang  up  in 
Canterbury  cathedral  in  tables  in  lieu  of  the  old 
ones,  which  are  almost  worn  out." 

To  this  usage,  which  was  no  doubt  of  monkish 
origin,  we  are  inclined  to  refer  the  specimens  of 
caligraphy  upon  gaudily  ornamented  sheets  of 
paper,  brought  round  on  St.  Stephen's  Day  by 
parish  boys  and  charity-school  children,  and  dis- 
played for  admiration  and  reward.  The  walls  of 
school-rooms,  and  the  houses  of  the  children's 
parents  are  afterwards  decorated  with  these 
"  Christmas  pieces,"  in  the  same  manner  as  were 
anciently  the  walls  of  churches. 

There  are  in  the  different  Christian  countries  of 
Europe  a  variety  of  popular  practices  connected 
with  St.  Stephen's  Day ;  such  as  that  of  bleeding 
horses,  which  is  mentioned  by  old  Tusser  in  his 
"  December's  Abstract :  "  — 

"  At  Christmas  is  good 
To  let  thy  horse  blood ;  " 

and   more   particularly  in   his  "  December's  Hus- 
bandry :  "  — 

"Ere  Christmas  be  passed,  let  horse  be  let  blood, 
P'or  many  a  purpose,  it  doth  them  much  good, 
The  day  of  St.  Stephett  old  fathers  did  use." 


ST.    STEPHENS    DAY.  3II 

These  various  popular  observances,  however,  are 
generally  of  that  local  and  peculiar  kind  which  we 
are  compelled  to  omit  in  our  enumeration,  for  rea- 
sons already  given.  But  there  is  one  of  so  striking 
a  character,  that  we  must  pause  to  give  some  ac- 
count of  it. 

This  custom,  which  is  called  "  hunting  the  wren," 
is  generally  practised  by  the  peasantry  of  the  south 
of  Ireland  on  St.  Stephen's  Day.  It  bears  a  close 
resemblance  to  the  Manx  proceedings  described 
by  ^^'aldron,  —  as  taking  place  however  on  a  differ- 
ent day.  "  On  the  24th  of  December,"  says  that 
writer,  in  his  account  of  the  Isle  of  Man,  "  towards 
evening  the  servants  in  general  have  a  holiday ; 
they  go  not  to  bed  all  night,  but  ramble  about  till 
the  bells  ring  in  all  the  churches,  which  is  at  twelve 
o'clock.  Prayers  being  over,  they  go  to  hunt  the 
wren  •  and  after  having  found  one  of  these  poor 
birds,  they  kill  her  and  lay  her  on  a  bier  with  the 
utmost  solemnity,  bringing  her  to  the  parish  church 
and  burying  her  with  a  whimsical  kind  of  solemnity, 
singing  dirges  over  her  in  the  Manx  language,  which 
they  call  her  knell ;  after  which  Christmas  begins." 

The  Wren-boys  in  Ireland,  who  are  also  called 
Droleens,  go  from  house  to  house  for  the  purpose 
of  levying  contributions,  carrying  one  or  more  of 
these  birds  in  the  midst  of  a  bush  of  holly,  gaily 
decorated  with  colored  ribbons ;  which  birds  they 
have,  like  the  Manx  mummers,  employed  their 
morning  in  killing.     The  following  is  their  song; 


312  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

of  which  they  deliver  themselves  in  most  monoton- 
ous music  :  — 

"  The  wren,  the  wren,  the  king  of  all  birds, 
St.  Stephen's-day  was  caught  in  the  furze, 
Although  he  is  little,  his  family  's  great, 
I  pray  you,  good  landlady,  give  us  a  treat. 

"  My  box  would  speak,  if  it  had  but  a  tongue. 
And  two  or  three  shillings  would  do  it  no  wrong; 
Sing  holly,  sing  ivy  —  sing  ivy,  sing  holly, 
A  drop  just  to  drink,  it  would  drown  melancholy. 

"  And  if  you  draw  it  of  the  best, 
I  hope,  in  heaven  your  soul  will  rest; 
But  if  you  draw  it  of  the  small, 
It  won't  agree  with  these  Wren-boys  at  all." 

If  an  immediate  acknowledgment,  either  in  money 
or  drink,  is  not  made  in  return  for  the  civility  of 
their  visit,  some  such  nonsensical  verses  as  the  fol- 
lowing are  added  :  — 

"  Last  Christmas-day,  I  turned  the  spit, 
I  burned  my  fingers  (I  feel  it  yet), 
A  cock  sparrow  flew  over  the  table, 
The  dish  began  to  fight  with  the  ladle. 

"  The  spit  got  up  like  a  naked  man. 
And  swore  he  'd  fight  with  the  dripping  pan  ; 
The  pan  got  up  and  cocked  his  tail, 
And  swore  he  'd  send  them  all  to  jail." 

The  story  told  to  account  for  the  title  of  "  king 
of  all  birds,"  here  given  to  the  wren,  is  a  curious 
sample  of  Irish  ingenuity,  and  is  thus  stated  in  the 


ST.    STEPHEN'S   DAY.  313 

clever  "Tales  of  the  Munster  Festivals,"  by  an  Irish 
servant  in  answer  to  his  master's  inquiry  :  — 

"  Saint  Stephen  !  why  what  the  mischief,  I  ask 
you  again,  have  I  to  do  with  Saint  Stephen  ?  " 

"  Nothen,  sure,  sir,  only  this  being  his  day,  when 
all  the  boys  o'  the  place  go  about  that  way  with  the 
wran,  the  king  of  all  birds,  sir,  as  they  say  (bekays 
wanst  when  all  the  birds  wanted  to  choose  a  king, 
and  they  said  they  'd  have  the  bird  that  would  fly 
highest,  the  aigle  flew  higher  than  any  of  'em,  till 
at  last  when  he  could  n't  fly  an  inch  higher,  a  little 
rogue  of  a  wran  that  was  a-hide  under  his  wing 
took  a  fly  above  him  a  piece,  and  was  crowned 
king,  of  the  aigle  an'  all,  sir),  tied  in  the  middle 
o'  the  holly  that  way  you  see,  sir,  by  the  leg,  that 
is.     An  old   custom,  sir." 

Vainly  have  we  endeavored  to  arrive  at  the  prob- 
able origin  of  hunting  and  killing  these  little  birds 
upon  this  day.  The  tradition  commonly  related  is 
by  no  means  satisfactory.  It  is  said  that  a  Danish 
army  would  have  been  surprised  and  destroyed  by 
some  Irish  troops,  had  not  a  wren  given  the  alarm 
by  pecking  at  some  crumbs  upon  a  drum-head,  — the 
remains  of  the  sleeping  drummer's  supper;  which 
roused  him,  when  he  instantly  beat  to  arms.  And 
that  from  this  circumstance  the  wren  became  an 
object  of  hatred  to  the  Irish, 

Songs  similar  in  spirit  to  that  of  the  Irish  Dro- 
leen  boys  were  popularly  sung  by  the  Greeks.  In 
D'Israeli's    "Curiosities    of    Literature,"    may   be 


314  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISIMAS. 

found  translations  of  "  the  crow  song,"  and  "  the 
swallow  song ; "  between  which  and  the  Irish  wren 
song  the  resemblance  is  very  strikihg.  "  Swallow- 
singing  or  chelidonising,  as  the  Greek  term  is,"  was, 
it  appears,  a  method  of  collecting  eleemosynary 
gifts  in  the  month  of  Boedromion  or  August.  We 
think  D'Israeli  is  right  in  his  opinion  that  there  is 
probably  a  closer  connection  between  the  custom 
which  produced  the  songs  of  the  crow  and  the 
swallow  and  that  of  our  northern  mummeries,  than 
may  be  at  first  sight  suspected.  The  subject  of 
mumming  we  have  elsewhere  treated  at  some 
length  ;  but  this  curious  variety  of  the  practice,  and 
the  manner  in  which  it  seems  to  connect  the  sub- 
ject with  the  ceremonies  of  the  Greeks,  we  could 
not  allow  ourselves  wholly  to  omit. 


NEW   YEAR'S   EVE. 

3 1  ST  December. 


This  is  the  last  day  of  the  year,  and  the  feelings 
which  belong  to  it  are  of  a  tangled  yarn.  Regrets 
for  the  past  are  mingled  with  hopes  of  the  future ; 
and  the  heart  of  man,  between  the  meeting  years, 
stands  like  the  head  of  Janus  looking  two  ways. 

The  day  and  eve  which  precede  the  New  Year 
are  marked,  in  England,  by  few  outward  observ- 
ances, save  such  as  are  common  to  the  season ;  and 
it  is  in  the  peculiar  trains  of  thought  to  which  they 
give  rise  that  they  have  a  character  of  their  own. 

In  Scotland,  on  the  other  hand,  the  festival  of 
this  season  is,  since  the  Reformation,  nearly  limited 
to  these  two  days ;  and  the  last  day  of  the  year  is 
distinguished  both  by  omens  and  by  customs  pe- 
culiar to  itself.  In  Mr.  Stewart's  "  Popular  Super- 
stitions of  the  Highlands,"  there  is  an  account  of 
some  of  these  omens,  as  they  were  gathered,  at  no 
distant  period,  in  that  land  of  mist  and  mystery ; 
and  a  singular  example  may  be  mentioned  in  the 
auguries  drawn  from  what  was  called  the  Candlemas 


3l6  •     THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

bull.  The  term  Candlemas,  which  has  been  given 
to  this  season,  in  Scotland  and  elsewhere,  is  sup- 
posed to  have  had  its  origin  in  some  old  religious 
ceremonies  which  were  performed  by  candle  light ; 
and  the  bull  was  a  passing  cloud,  which  in  High- 
land imagination  assumed  the  form  of  that  animal, 
and  from  whose  rise  or  fall,  or  motions  generally 
on  this  night,  the  seer  prognosticated  good  or  bad 
weather.  Something  of  the  same  kind  is  mentioned 
in  Sir  John  Sinclair's  "  Statistical  Account  of  Scot- 
land," who  explains  more  particularly  the  auguries 
gathered  from  the  state  of  the  atmosphere  on  New 
Year's  Eve.  The  superstition  in  question,  however, 
is  not  peculiar  to  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  but 
shared  with  the  northern  European  nations  in 
general,  most  of  whom  assigned  portentous  qualities 
to  the  winds  of  New  Year's  Eve. 

It  is  on  this  night  that  those  Scottish  mummers, 
the  Guisars,  to  whom  we  have  already  more  than 
once  alluded,  still  go  about  the  streets,  habited  in 
antic  dresses,  having  their  faces  covered  with  vizards 
and  carrying  cudgels  in  their  hands.  The  doggerel 
lines  repeated  by  these  masquers,  as  given  by  Mr. 
Callender,  in  a  paper  contributed  by  him  to  the 
Transactions  of  the  Antiquarian  Society  of  Scotland^ 
are  as  follows  :  — 

"  Hogmanay, 
Trollolay, 
Gie  me  o'  your  white  bread, 
I'll  hae  nane  o'  your  grey ;  " 


NEW    YEARS    EVE.  317 

and  much  learning  has  been  exhausted,  and  inge- 
nuity exercised  in  their  explanation.  The  admi- 
rable paper  of  Mr.  Repp,  in  the  same  Transactions 
(to  which  we  have  already  alluded,  and  which  we 
recommend  to  the  notice  of  our  antiquarian  readers), 
connects  them,  as  we  have  before  hinted,  with 
another  superstition  common  to  many  of  the  north- 
ern nations ;  and  which  may  be  compared  with  one 
of  the  articles  of  popular  belief  before  described,  as 
prevailing  in  England,  on  Christmas  Eve  ;  that,  viz., 
which  seems  to  imply  that  the  spirits  of  evil  are  at 
this  time  in  peculiar  activity,  unless  kept  down  by 
holier  and  more  powerful  influences.  According  to 
this  able  investigator,  the  moment  of  midnight,  on 
New  Year's  Eve,  was  considered  to  be  a  general 
removing  term  for  the  races  of  genii,  whether 
good  or  bad ;  and  the  first  two  lines  of  the  cry  in 
question,  which  as  he  explains  them,  after  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  and  Icelandic  dialects,  were  words  of  appeal 
to  the  good  genii  (the  hoghraen  or  hillmen),  and 
of  execration  against  the  evil  ones  (the  troUes),  were 
so  used,  in  consequence  of  such  belief  (that  these 
different  spirits  were,  at  that  hour,  in  motion),  and 
of  the  further  one  that  the  words  of  men  had  power 
to  determine  that  motion  to  their  own  advantage. 
It  is  well  known  that,  in  some  countries,  and  we 
may  mention  Germany,  great  importance  is  at- 
tached to  words  involuntarily  uttered  at  certain  sea- 
sons, and  under  certain  circumstances,  and  they 
are  supposed  to  be  either  words  of  betrayal,  leaving 


3l8  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

the  speaker  open  to  the  machinations  of  evil  spirits, 
who  may  apply  them  in  a  strained  and  fatal  sense, 
if  at  all  ambiguous ;  or  words  of  power,  controlling 
the  designs  of  demons,  and  compelling  them  to 
work  out  the  good  of  the  utterer,  against  their  will. 
Now  a  superstition  of  this  kind,  Mr.  Repp  says, 
attaches  generally  to  the  doctrines  of  demonology  ; 
and  he  states  that  he  could  prove  his  position  by 
many  instances  from  Arabic  and  Persian  fairy  lore. 
We  may  observe  that  some  of  the  Highland  super- 
stitions mentioned  by  Mr.  Stewart,  such  as  that  of 
sprinkling  the  household  with  water  drawn  from 
the  dead  and  living  ford,  and  that  of  fumigating  the 
apartments  and  half  smothering  their  tenants  with 
the  smoke  from  burning  piles  of  the  juniper-bush 
(both  considered  to  operate  as  charms  against  the 
spells  of  witchcraft  and  the  malignity  of  evil  eyes), 
have,  evidently,  their  origin  in  that  same  belief,  that 
the  powers  of  evil  are  on  the  wing  at  this  mysterious 
and  solemn  time  of  natural  transition. 

Some  ancient  superstitions  are  likewise  alluded  to 
in  the  old  dialogue  of  Dives  and  Pauper,  as  being 
in  force  at  the  beginning  of  the  year,  and  which 
appear  to  have  had  a  like  origin  with  the  Highland 
ones  above  described.  As  an  example,  mention 
may  be  made  of  the  practice  of  "  setting  of  mete  or 
drynke  by  nighte  on  the  benche,  to  fede  Alholde 
or  Gobelyn." 

We  must  not  forget  to  observe  that  Brand  speaks 
of  an  ancient  custom,  which  he  says  is  still  retained 


NEW    YEARS    EVE.  319 

in  some  parts  of  England,  in  which  young  women 
go  about  on  this  eve  carrying  a  wassail-bowl,  and 
singing  certain  verses  from  door  to  door,  which  cus- 
tom has  certainly  some  analogy  with  the  hogmanay 
practice  in  Scotland.  And  we  may  further  state, 
while  we  are  in  the  way  of  tracing  resemblances, 
that  the  het  pint,  which,  in  Scotland,  was  formerly 
carried  about  the  streets  at  the  midnight  of  the  New 
Year's  coming  in,  and  which  was  composed  of  ale, 
spirits,  sugar,  and  nutmeg  or  cinnamon,  is  neither 
more  nor  less,  though  it  was  borne  about  in  a  kettle, 
than  a  Scottish  version  of  the  wassail-bowl. 

In  Ritson's  collection  of  ancient  songs,  there  is  a 
very  spirited  carol  given  at  length,  which  appears 
to  have  been  sung  by  these  English  wassail  mum- 
mers, in  honor  of  their  bowl ;  but  which  some  of 
its  verses  prove  to  be  a  Twelfth-night  song,  and 
show,  therefore,  that  a  similar  practice  marked  the 
night  of  the  Epiphany.     It  begins  right  heartily  :  — 

"  A  jolly  vvassel-bowl, 
A  wassel  of  good  ale, 
Well  fare  the  butler's  soul 
That  setteth  this  to  sale  ; 

Our  jolly  wassel; " 

but  is  too  long  for  insertion  in  our  pages.  We 
should  mention  here,  however,  that  ale  in  all  its 
forms,  whether  in  that  of  wassail  composition  or  in 
its  own  simple  dignity,  "  prince  of  liquors,  old  or 
new  ! "  was  ever  the  most  cherished  beverage  of 
our  ancestors,  and  many  and  enthusiastic  are  the 


320  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS, 

songs  in  its  praise.  Our  readers  may  take  the  fol- 
lowing verse  from  a  very  pleasant  example  of  these 
carols  :  — 

"  I  love  no  rost,  but  a  nut  brown  toste, 
And  a  crab  layde  in  the  fyre, 
A  little  bread  shall  do  me  stead, 

Much  breade  I  not  desyre  : 
No  froste  nor  snow,  no  winde,  I  trowe. 

Can  hurt  mee  if  I  wolde  ; 
I  am  so  wrapt,  and  throwly  lapt 
Of  jolly  good  ale  and  olde. 

Back  and  syde  go  bare,  go  bare. 

Both  foote  and  hand,  go  colde ; 
But  belly  God  send  thee  good  ale  inoughe, 
Whether  it  be  new  or  olde." 

We  believe  that  most  of  the  customs  which,  up 
to  a  recent  period,  filled  the  streets  of  Edinburgh 
with  mirth  and  bustle,  on  the  eve  of  the  New  Year, 
have  met  with  discouragement,  and  of  late  fallen 
into  disuse,  in  consequence  of  some  outrages  which 
were  committed  under  their  shelter,  in  the  year  1811. 
We  presume,  however,  that  there  are  still  many 
places  of  the  northern  kingdom,  in  which  the  youth 
waits  impatiently  for  the  striking  of  the  midnight 
hour,  that  he  may  be  the  earliest  to  cross  the  thresh- 
old of  his  mistress,  and  the  lassie  listens  eagerly, 
from  the  moment  when  its  chiming  has  ceased,  to 
catch  the  sound  of  the  first-foot  on  the  floor :  — 

"  ThQ  first  foot' s  entering  step. 
That  sudden  on  the  floor  is  welcome  heard. 
Ere  blushing  maids  have  braided  up  their  hair ; 
The  laugh,  the  hearty  kiss,  the  good  New  Year, 
Pronounced  with  honest  warmth." 


NEW    YEARS    EVE.  32 1 

Considerable  importance  was  formerly,  and  prob- 
ably is  still,  attached  to  this  custom.  The  welfare 
of  a  family,  particularly  of  the  fairer  portion  of  its 
^members,  was  supposed  to  depend  much  on  the 
character  of  the  person  who  might  first  cross  the 
threshold,  after  the  mid-hour  of  this  night  had 
sounded.  Great  care  was  therefore  taken  to  ex- 
clude all  improper  persons ;  and  when  the  privi- 
lege of  the  season  is  taken  into  consideration  (that 
viz.,  of  the  hearty  kiss  above  mentioned),  it  is 
probable  that  the  maidens  themselves  might  con- 
sider it  desirable  to  interfere  after  their  own  fashion 
in  the  previous  arrangements  which  were  to  secure 
the  priority  of  admission  to  an  unobjectionable 
guest. 

But  our  space  does  not  permit  us  to  inquire  at 
length  in  the  present  volume  into  any  other  cus- 
toms than  those  which  belong  to  an  English 
Christmas  season.  We  have  only  been  able  occa- 
sionally to  advert  to  others,  even  amongst  our  own 
sister  nations,  when  they  helped  to  throw  light  upon 
those  which  on  this  occasion  are  our  immediate 
subject.  We  must  therefore  return  at  once  to  the 
only  general  and  conspicuous  observance  of  this 
eve  in  England,  viz.,  that  which  is  commonly 
called  "  seeing  the  New  Year  in." 

It  is  almost  impossible  for  man   on  this  day  to 

be  insensible  to  the  "  still  small  voices  "  that  call 

upon  him  for  a  gathering  up  of  his  thoughts.     In 

the  very  midst  of  the  house  of   mirth,  a  shadow 

21 


322  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

passes  through  the  heart  and  summons  it  to  a 
solemn  conference.  The  skeleton  who  sits  at  all 
feasts,  though  overlooked  at  most  from  long  habit, 
gets  power  on  this  day  to  wave  his  hand,  and  points 
emphatically,  with  his  "  slow-moving  finger,"  to  the 
long  record  whose  burthen  is  "  passing  away !  " 
The  handwriting  of  Time  comes  visibly  out  upon 
the  wall ;  and  the  spirit  pauses  to  read  its  lessons, 
and  take  an  account  of  the  wrecks  which  it  regis- 
ters and  the  changes  which  it  announces.  Proper- 
ly speaking,  every  day  is  the  commencement  of  a 
new  year,  and  the  termination  of  an  old  one  ;  but 
it  is  only,  as  we  have  said  at  the  beginning  of  this 
book,  by  these  emphatic  markings  that  man  is  at- 
tracted to  a  consideration  of  a  fact,  whose  daily 
recurrence  at  once  makes  its  weighty  importance 
and  causes  it  to  be  forgotten,  as  if  it  were  of  none  ! 
But  on  this  particular  day,  no  man  fails  to  re- 
member that  — 

"  Again  the  silent  wheels  of  time 
Their  annual  round  have  driven  ;  " 

and  how  solemn  are  the  reflections  which  suggest 
themselves  to  him  who  casts  his  eye  over  the  space 
of  a  year,  in  a  spirit  which  can  look  beyond  his 
own  personal  share  in  its  doings,  and  embrace  the 
wide  human  interests  that  such  a  retrospect  in- 
cludes!  "What  a  mighty  sum  of  events,"  says 
that  excellent  writer,  William  Howitt,  "  has  been 
consummated;  what  a  tide  of  passions  and  affec- 


NEW    YEARS    EVE.  323 

tions  has  flowed ;  what  lives  and  deaths  have  alter- 
nately arrived ;  what  destinies  have  been  fixed  for- 
ever! .  .  .  Once  more  our  planet  has  completed 
one  of  those  journeys  in  the  heavens  which  perfect 
all  the  fruitful  changes  of  its  peopled  surface,  and 
mete  out  the  few  stages  of  our  existence ;  and 
every  day,  every  hour  of  that  progress  has  in  all 
her  wide  lands,  in  all  her  million  hearts,  left  traces 
that  eternity  shall  behold."  Oh !  blessed  they  and 
rich,  beyond  all  other  blessedness  and  all  other 
wealth  which  "  Time's  effacing  fingers  "  may  have 
left  them,  who,  on  the  last  night  of  the  year,  can 
turn  from  reviews  like  these  to  sleep  upon  the  pil- 
low of  a  good  conscience,  though  that  pillow  should 
be  moistened,  aye,  steeped  in  their  tears  ! 

No  doubt  it  is  in  the  name  of  his  own  private 
affections  that  man  is  first  summoned  to  that  re- 
view, which  the  wise  will  end  by  thus  extending ; 
and  the  first  reckoning  which  each  will  naturally 
take  is  that  of  the  treasures  which  may  have  been 
lost  or  gained  to  himself  in  the  year  which  is  about 
to  close.  Through  many,  many  a  heart,  that  sum- 
mons rings  in  the  low,  sweet,  mournful  voice  of 
some  beloved  one,  whom  in  that  bereaving  space 
we  have  laid  in  the  "  narrow  house  ;  "  and  then 
it  will  happen  (for  man  is  covetous  of  his  griefs, 
when  his  attention  is  once  called  to  them)  that  the 
ghost  which  took  him  out  into  the  churchyard  to 
visit  its  own  tomb,  will  end  by  carrying  him  round 
its  dreary  precincts  and  showing  him  all  the  graves 


324  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

that  he  has  planted  from  his  childhood.  There 
will  be  hours  on  a  day  like  this  to  many,  and  in 
some  year  or  another  to  most,  when  the  cheerful 
hopes  which  are  also  of  the  natural  spirit  of  the 
season  would  contend  in  vain  with  the  memories 
which  it  conjures  up,  but  for  that  furthest  and 
brightest  hope  which  lies  beyond  the  rest,  and 
which  is  at  this  moment  typified  and  shadowed 
forth  by  the  returning  sun  and  the  renewing 
year. 

We  cannot  refrain  from  pausing  here,  to  quote 
for  our  readers  a  few  exquisite  and  affecting  lines 
written  in  the  seventeenth  century  by  Henry  King, 
Bishop  of  Chichester,  to  one  such  beloved  remem- 
brancer, and  in  the  cheering  spirit  of  that  same 
precious  hope.  We  fancy  they  are  very  little 
known. 

"  Sleep  on,  my  love  !  in  thy  cold  bed, 
Never  to  be  disquieted! 
My  last  '  good  night ! '  —  thou  wilt  not  wake 
Till  I  thy  fate  shall  overtake  ; 
Till  age,  or  grief,  or  sickness  must 
Marry  my  body  to  that  dust 
It  so  much  loves,  —  and  fill  the  room 
My  heart  keeps  empty  in  thy  tomb. 
Stay  for  me  there  !  —  I  will  not  faile 
To  meet  thee  in  that  hollow  vale  :  — 
And  think  not  much  of  my  delay, 
I  am  already  on  the  way, 
And  follow  thee  with  all  the  speed 
Desire  can  make,  or  sorrows  breed. 
Each  minute  is  a  short  degree. 
And  every  houre  a  step  tow'rds  thee  :  — 


NEW    YEAR  S    EVE.  325 

At  night,  when  I  betake  to  rest, 

Next  morn  I  rise  nearer  my  West 

Of  life,  almost  by  eight  houres'  sail, 

Than  when  sleep  breathed  his  drowsy  gale  !  " 

There  are  in  the  last  volume  of  poems  published 
by  Mr.  Tennyson,  some  beautiful  verses,  in  which 
the  natural  thoughts  that  inevitably  haunt  this  sea- 
son of  change  are  touchingly  expressed,  as  they 
arise  even  in  the  young  breast  of  one  for  whom 
"seasons  and  their  change  "  are  immediately  about 
to  be  no  more.  We  are  in  a  mood  which  tempts 
us  to  extract  them. 

If  you  're  waking,  call  me  early,  call  me  early,  mother  dear, 
For  I  would  see  the  sun  rise  upon  the  glad  New-year  — 
It  is  the  last  New-year  that  I  shall  ever  see, 
Then  ye  may  lay  me  low  i'  the  mould,  and  think  no  more  of 
me. 

To-night  I  saw  the  sun  set :  he  set  and  left  behind 

The  good  old  year,  the  dear  old  time,  and  all  my  peace  of 

mind  ; 
And  the  New-year  's  coming  up,  mother,  but  I  shall  never 

see 
The  may  upon  the  blackthorn,  the  leaf  upon  the  tree. 

Last  May  we  made  a  crown  of'flowers  :  we  had  a  merry  day  : 
Beneath  the  hawthorn  on  the  green  they  made  me  Queen  of 

May ; 
And  we  danced  about  the  maypole,  and  in  the  hazel-copse, 
Till  Charles's  wain  came  out  above  the  tall  white  chimney- 
tops. 

There  's  not  a  flower  on  all  the  hills :  the  frost  is  on  the 

pane : 
I  only  wish  to  live  till  the  snowdrops  come  again : 


326  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

I  wish  the  snow  would  melt  and  the  sun  come  out  on  high  — 
I  long  to  see  a  flower  so  before  the  day  I  die. 

The  building  rook  '11  caw  from  the  windy  tall  elm-tree, 

And  the  tufted  plover  pipe  along  the  fallow  lea, 

And  the  swallow  '11  come  back  again  with  summer  o'er  the 

wave, 
But  I  shall  lie  alone,  mother,  within  the  moulde  ring  grave. 

Upon  the  chancel  casement,  and  upon  that  grave  of  mine, 
In  the  early,  early  morning  the  summer  sun  '11  shine. 
Before  the  red  cock  crows  from  the  farm  upon  the  hill. 
When  you  are  warm  asleep,  mother,  and  all  the  world  is 
still. 

When  the  flowers  come  again,  mother,  beneath  the  waning 

light. 
Ye  '11  never  see  me  more  in  the  long  gray  fields  at  night ; 
When  from  the  dry  dark  wold  the  summer  airs  blow  cool. 
On  the  oat-grass  and  the  sword-grass,  and  the  bulrush  in  the 

pool. 

Ye  '11  bury  me,  my  mother,  just  beneath  the  hawthorn  shade, 
And  ye  '11  come  sometimes  and  see  me  where  I  am  lowly  laid, 
I  shall  not  forget  ye,  mother,  I  shall  hear  ye  when  ye  pass. 
With  your  feet  above  my  head  in  the  long  and  pleasant 
grass. 

I  have  been  wild  and  wayward,  but  ye  '11  forgive  me  now : 
Ye  '11  kiss  me,  my  own  mother,  upon  my  cheek  and  brow ; 
Nay,  —  nay,  ye  must  not  weep,  nor  let  your  grief  be  wild, 
Ye  should  not  fret  for  me,  mother,  ye  have  another  child. 

If  I  can,  I  '11  come  again,  mother,  from  out  my  resting-place 
Tho'  ye  '11  not  see  me,  mother,  I  shall  look  upon  your  face ; 
Tho'  I  cannot  speak  a  word,  I  shall  hearken  what  ye  say. 
And  be  often  —  often  with  ye  when  ye  think  I  'm  far  away. 


NEW    YEARS    EVE.  327 

Good  night !  good  night !  when  I  have  said  good  night  for 

evermore, 
And  ye  see  me  carried  out  from  the  threshold  of  the  door, 
Don't  let  Effie  come  to  see  me  till  my  grave  be  growing 

green  ; 
She  '11  be  a  better  child  to  you  than  ever  I  have  been. 

She  '11  find  my  garden  tools  upon  the  granary  floor  ; 

Let  her  take  'em,  —  they  are  hers,  —  I  shall  never  garden 

more  : 
But  tell  her,  when  I  'm  gone,  to  train  the  rosebush  that  I  set, 
About  the  parlor  window,  and  the  box  of  mignonette. 

Good  night,  sweet  mother  !  call  me  when  it  begins  to  dawn  : 
All  night  I  lie  awake,  but  I  fall  asleep  at  morn  : 
But  I  would  see  the  sun  rise  upon  the  glad  New  year, 
So,  if  you  're  waking,  call  me,  call  me  early,  mother  dear  ! 

And  it  is  wholesome  that  the  mournful  reflections 
which  the  period  suggests  sJwuld  be  indulged,  but 
not  to  the  neglect  of  its  more  cheerful  influences. 
The  New  Year's  Eve  is  in  all  quarters  looked  upon 
as  a  time  of  rejoicing;  and  perhaps  no  night  of 
this  merry  season  is  more  universally  dedicated  to 
festivity.  Men  are  for  the  most  part  met  in  groups 
to  hail  the  coming  year  with  propitiatory  honors ; 
and  copious  libations  are  poured  to  its  honor,  as 
if  to  deteniiine  it  to  look  upon  us  with  a  benignant 
aspect.  We  generally  spend  our  New  Year's  Eve 
in  some  such  group  ;  but,  we  confess,  it  is  not  every 
class  of  wassailers  that  will  suit  us  for  the  occasion. 
The  fact  is,  after  all  our  resolves  to  work  up  our 
minds  to  the  pitch  of  gladness,  aye,  and  notwith- 
standing our  success,  too,  there  are  other  feelings 


328  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

that  will  intrude  in  spite  of  us ;  and  we  like  to 
find  ourselves  in  a  party  where  their  presence  is 
not  looked  upon  as  a  marrer  of  the'  revels.  When 
fitly  associated  for  such  a  night,  we  find  the  very 
feelings  in  question  for  the  most  part  to  harmonize 
very  delightfully  with  the  predominant  spirit  of  the 
time,  producing  a  sort  of  mixed  sensation  which  is 
full  of  luxury  and  tenderness.  Bye  the  by,  we  have 
no  great  wish  to  have  for  our  companions  at  any 
time  those  precisians  who  insist  greatly  on  the  ex- 
ternal solemnities.  "  Ye  are  sae  grave,  nae  doubt 
ye  're  wise,"  says  Burns.  But  for  ourselves,  gentle- 
men, our  sympathies  lie  with  those  who  can  be 
made  to  understand  that  the  garb  of  even  folly 
may  by  possibility  be  at  times  worn  by  those  who 
conceal  beneath  it  more  sickness  of  the  heart,  as 
well  as  more  wisdom,  than  shall  ever  be  dreamt  of 
in  your  philosophy,  —  who  know,  in  fact,  that  that 
same  folly  is  sometimes  the  very  saddest  thing  in 
the  world ;  that  the  jingle  of  the  cap  and  bells  is 
too  often  but  a  vain  device,  like  that  of  the  ancient 
Corybantes,  to  drown  the  *'  still  small "  sounds 
whose  wailing  is  yet  heard  over  all. 

And  on  the  night  before  us,  of  all  nights  in  the 
year,  the  smile  and  the  laugh  go  freely  round,  but 
ever  and  anon  there  is,  as  it  were,  the  echo  of  a  far 
sigh.  A  birth  in  which  we  have  a  mighty  interest 
is  about  to  take  place,  but  every  now  and  then 
comes  to  the  heart  the  impression  of  low  whisper- 
ing  and  soft  treading   in  the  back-ground,  as   of 


NEW    YEAR  S    EVE.  329 

those  who  wait  about  a  death-bed.  We  are  in  a 
state  of  divided  feelings,  somewhat  resembling  his 
whose  joy  at  the  falling  of  a  rich  inheritance  is 
dashed  by  tender  recollections  of  the  friend  by 
whose  departure  it  came.  Let  Mr.  Tennyson  ex- 
plain  for  us  why  this  is  so :  — 

"  Full  knee-deep  lies  the  winter  snow, 
And  the  winter  winds  are  wearily  sighing  : 
Toll  ye  the  church-bell  sad  and  slow, 
And  tread  softly  and  speak  low, 
For  the  old  year  lies  a-dying. 

Old  year,  you  must  not  die. 

You  came  to  us  so  readily. 

You  lived  with  us  so  steadily, 

Old  year,  you  shall  not  die. 

"  He  lieth  still :  he  doth  not  move : 
He  will  not  see  the  dawn  of  day. 
He  hath  no  other  life  above. 
He  gave  me  a  friend,  and  a  true  true-love, 
And  the  New-year  will  take  'em  away. 

Old  year,  you  must  not  go. 

So  long  as  you  have  been  with  us. 

Such  joy  as  you  have  seen  with  us. 

Old  year,  you  shall  not  go  ! 

"  He  frothed  his  bumpers  to  the  brim  ; 
A  jollier  year  we  shall  not  see. 
But  tho'  his  eyes  are  waxing  dim. 
And  tho'  his  foes  speak  ill  of  him, 
He  was  a  friend  to  me  ! 

Old  year,  you  shall  not  die. 

We  did  so  laugh  and  cry  with  you, 

I  've  half  a  mind  to  die  with  you, 

Old  year,  if  you  must  die. 


330  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

"  He  was  full  of  joke  and  jest, 
But  all  his  merry  quips  are  o'er. 
To  see  him  die,  across  the  waste     . 
His  son  and  heir  doth  ride  post-haste, 
But  he  '11  be  dead  before  ! 

Every  one  for  his  own  ! 

The  night  is  starry  and  cold,  my  friend, 

And  the  New-year,  blithe  and  bold,  my  frierd, 

Comes  up  to  take  his  own. 

"  How  hard  he  breathes  !  —  over  the  snow, 
I  heard  just  now  the  crowing  cock. 
The  shadows  flicker  to  and  fro  ; 
The  cricket  chirps:  the  light  burns  low  : 
'T  is  nearly  one  ^  o'clock. 

Shake  hands  before  you  die. 

Old  year,  we  'II  dearly  rue  for  you. 

What  is  it  we  can  do  for  you  ? 

Speak  out  before  you  die  ! 

"  His  face  is  growing  sharp  and  thin. 
Alack  !  our  friend  is  gone  ! 
Close  up  his  eyes  :  tie  up  his  chin  : 
Step  from  the  corpse,  and  let  him  in 
That  standeth  there  alone. 

And  waiteth  at  the  door. 

There  's  a  new  foot  on  the  floor,  my  friend, 

And  a  new  face  at  the  door,  my  friend, 

A  new  face  at  the  door  !  " 

Occasionally,  too,  there  will  come  a  thought 
across  us,  in  these  hours,  which  cannot  be  made  to 
harmonize  with  the  feelings  we  are  seeking  to  en- 
courage, and  has  the  unpleasing  effect  of  a  discord. 

1  (Twelve.?) 


HfPf^TV" 


NEW    YEARS    EVE.  33I 

It  is  felt  at  times,  for  instance,  to  be  a  sort  of  in- 
decency that  we  should  be  looking  out  merrily  for 
the  New  Year,  when  the  old  one  is  perishing  by  our 
side,  and,  for  an  instant,  the  heart's  joyous  issues 
are  thrown  back  upon  it.  And  then,  again,  the 
looker  forward  to  hail  the  "  coming  guest  "  will 
suddenly  fix  his  eyes  upon  the  veil  which  shrouds 
that  face ;  and  the  chill  of  a  moment  will  creep 
over  his  heart,  as  he  speculates  on  what  it  may  con- 
ceal, or,  gazing  on  the  sealed  book  which  the  New 
Year  carries  in  his  hand,  asks  himself  how  many  of 
those  who  sit  with  him  on  this  night  about  the  so- 
cial table,  may  have  their  names  written  in  its  last 
page  !  Thoughts  like  these,  however,  are  instantly 
treated  like  informers,  and  ducked,  as  they  deserve 
to  be,  in  the  wassail-bowl. 

But,  in  any  case,  we  have  never  failed  to  observe 
that,  as  the  midnight  hour  draws  near,  a  hush  falls 
upon  these  assemblies  ;  and  when  men  rise  to  usher 
in  the  new  comer,  it  is  for  the  most  part  in  silence. 
We  do  not  believe  that  moment  is  ever  a  merry 
one.  The  blithe  spirits  of  the  night  stand  still. 
The  glasses  are  full,  —  but  so  is  the  heart,  and  the 
eye  is  strained  upon  the  finger  of  the  dial  whose 
notes  are  to  sound  the  arrival,  as  if  held  there  by  a 
spell.  We  do  not  think  that  any  man,  of  all  that 
group  whom  our  artist  has  represented,  could  turn 
his  face  away  from  the  dial,  even  by  an  effort ;  and 
he  who  could,  would  be  out  of  place  in  any  as- 
sembly of  which  we  made  one,  unless  we  were  out 


332  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

of  place  ourselves.  The  instant  the  solemn  sounds 
of  the  midnight  chime  have  ceased,  the  bells  from  a 
thousand  steeples  lift  up  their  merry  Voices,  but  they 
never,  at  that  moment,  found  a  true  echo  in  our 
hearts  ;  and  the  shout  which  rises  from  the  wassail 
table,  in  answer,  has  ever  seemed  to  us  to  want 
much  of  the  mirth  to  which  it  makes  such  boister- 
ous pretension. 

But  this  oppressive  sensation  soon  passes  away  ; 
and  the  glad  bells  of  the  spirit,  like  those  of  the 
steeples,  ring  freely  out.  When  the  old  year  is  fairly 
withdrawn,  when  we  have  ceased  to  hear  the  sound 
of  the  falling  earth  upon  its  coffin-lid,  when  the  heir 
stands  absolutely  in  our  presence,  and  the  curtain 
which  hides  his  features  has  begun  slowly  to  rise 
(while  the  gazer  on  that  curtain  can  discover,  as  yet, 
nothing  of  the  dark  things  that  lie  behind,  and  the 
hopes  which  the  New  Year  brings  are  seen  through 
it,  by  their  own  light),  — then  does  the  heart  shake 
off  all  that  interfered  with  its  hearty  enjoyment, 
and  then  "comes  in  the  sweet  o'  the  night !  "  We 
are,  ourselves,  of  that  party  in  the  plate  ;  and  it  will 
be  late,  we  promise  you,  before  we  separate.  One 
song  to  the  past !  and  then,  "  shall  we  set  about 
some  revels?"  —  as  our  old  friend.  Sir  Andrew, 
hath  it. 

"  Here  's  to  the  year  that's  awa  I 
We  '11  drink  it,  in  strong  and  in  sma' ; 

And  to  each  bonny  lassie  that  we  dearly  loo'd, 
In  the  days  o'  the  year  that 's  awa ! 


NEW   YEARS    EVE.  333 

"  Here  's  to  the  soldier  who  bled  ! 
To  the  sailor  who  bravely  did  fa' ! 
Oh,  their  fame  shall  remain,  though  their  spirits  are  fled, 
On  the  wings  o'  the  year  that 's  awa ! 

"  Here  's  to  the  friend  we  can  trust. 
When  the  storms  of  adversity  blaw  ; 
Who  can  join  in  our  song,  and  be  nearest  our  heart, 
Nor  depart,  —  like  the  year  that 's  awa  ! " 

And  now  are  we  in  the  humor,  this  New  Year's 
morning,  for  keeping  such  vigils  as  they  did  in 
lUyria ;  for  "  were  we "  too  "  not  born  under 
Taunis?"  No  advocates  do  we  mean  to  be  for 
those  whose  zeal  in  symposiac  matters,  like  that 
of  Bardolph,  '-'burns  in  their  noses  ;"  but  occasions 
there  are,  and  this  is  one,  when  we  hold  it  law- 
ful to  sound  the  wassail-bowl  to  some  considerable 
depth.  Like  honest  Isaak  Walton,  we  love  to  keep 
within  the  bounds  of  "  such  mirth  as  does  not  make 
friends  ashamed  to  look  on  one  another,  next  morn- 
ing ;  "  but  we  feel  that  we  may  venture  to  be  a  little 
intemperate,  in  the  present  instance,  and  yet  hold 
our  heads  up,  even  if  we  should  chance  to  meet 
one  of  those  gentry  whom  Burns  presumes  to  be 
wise,  because  they  "are  sae  grave."  What  says 
Innocentius  ?  —  and  he  was  a  Father  of  the  Church  ; 
Fecimdi  calices,  quevi  iion  fecere  disertum  ?  "  "  Carry 
Master  Silence  to  bed  •  ''  therefore,  for  we  are 
about  to  be  talkative,  and  expect  to  be  answered. 
No  man  need  sit  with  us  longer  than  he  likes  :  but 
it  is  the  opening  of  another  year,  and  7ve  must  see 


334  'i'HE   BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

more  of  it.  We  find  much  virtue  in  Sir  Toby's  excel- 
lent reasoning,  that  "not  to  be  abed  after  midnight 
is  to  be  up  betimes  ; "  and  have  no  sympathy  for 
those  who  would  insist,  to-day,  with  the  stolid  Sir 
Andrew,  that  "  to  be  up  late  is  to  be  up  late."  "A 
false  conclusion  ! "  says  Sir  Toby ;  and  so  say  we. 
So  fill  the  glasses,  once  more,  from  the  wassail-bowl, 
and  let  us  "  rouse  the  night-owl "  in  another 
"  catch  ! " 

But  alas  !  it  is  later  than  we  thought,  and  the  owl 
is  gone  to  bed ;  for  we  hear  the  cry  of  that  other 
bird  whom  Herrick  calls  "  the  Bellman  of  the 
night :  "  — 

"  Hark  !  the  cock  crows,  and  yon  bright  star 
Tells  us  the  clay  himself  's  not  far ; 
And  see !  where,  breaking  from  the  night, 
He  gilds  the  eastern  hills  with  light !  " 

Honest  Master  Cotton  had  evidently  been  sitting 
up  all  night,  himself,  when  he  wrote  these  lines ; 
and  being  therefore  a  boon  companion,  and  a  true 
observer  of  Christmas  proprieties,  we  will  take  his 
warning,  and  to  bed  ourselves.  So  "a  good  New 
Year  to  you,  my  masters  !  and  many  of  them  ! " 
as  the  bellman  (not  Herrick's)  says,  on  this 
morning. 


NEW   YEAR'S    DAY. 

1ST  JANUARY. 


The  first  of  January,  forming  the  accomplishment 
of  the  eight  days  after  the  birth  of  Christ,  has  been 
sometimes  called  the  octave  of  Christmas ;  and  is 
celebrated  in  our  church  services  as  the  day  of  the 
Circumcision. 

Of  this  day  we  have  little  left  to  say ;  almost 
all  that  belongs  to  it  having  been  of  necessity  an- 
ticipated in  the  progress  of  those  remarks  which 
have  brought  us  up  to  it.  It  is  a  day  of  universal 
congratulation  ;  and  one  on  which,  so  far  as  we  may 
judge  from  external  signs,  a  general  expansion  of 
the  heart  takes  place.  Even  they  who  have  no 
hearts  to  open,  or  hearts  which  are  not  opened  by 
such  ordinary  occasions,  adopt  the  phraseology  of 
those  whom  all  genial  hints  call  into  sympathy  with 
their  fellow-creatures ;  and  the  gracious  compli- 
ments of  the  season  may  be  heard  falling  from  lips 
on  which  they  must  surely  wither  in  the  very  act 
of  passing.  To  have  your  morning's  salutation 
from  a  worthy  like  our  friend  with  the  umbrella  in 


336  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

the  plate,  must  be  much  the  same  thing  as  riding 
out  into  the  highway,  and  getting  your  New  Year's 
greeting  from  a  raven  by  the  roadside.  Mathews's 
undertaker,  who  used  to  sing  the  song  of  "  Merry 
I  have  been,  and  merry  could  I  be,"  at  his  club,  to 
a  tune  considerably  below  a  dirge  in  point  of  live- 
liness, was  a  brother  of  the  same  family. 

Of  New  Year's  gifts,  which  are  the  distinguishing 
feature  of  this  day,  we  have  already  said  enough, 
in  pointing  out  the  distinction  betwixt  them  and 
Christmas-boxes.  They  still  pass  generally  from 
friend  to  friend,  and  between  the  different  mem- 
bers of  a  family ;  and  are  in  such  cases,  very 
pleasant  remembrancers  ;  but  the  practice  in  an- 
cient times  had  some  very  objectionable  features. 
It  was  formerly  customary  for  the  nobles  and  those 
about  the  court  to  make  presents  on  this  day  to 
the  sovereign ;  who,  if  he  were  a  prince  with  any- 
thing like  a  princely  mind,  took  care  that  the  returns 
which  he  made  in  kind  should  at  least  balance  the 
cost  to  the  subject.  The  custom,  however,  became 
a  serious  tax  when  the  nobles  had  to  do  with  a 
sovereign  of  another  character ;  and  in  Elizabeth's 
day  it  was  an  affair  of  no  trifling  expense  to  main- 
tain ground  as  a  courtier.  The  lists  of  the  kind 
of  gifts  which  she  exacted  from  all  who  approached 
her  (for  the  necessity  of  giving,  the  consequences 
of  not  giving,  amounted  to  an  exaction),  and  the 
accounts  of  the  childish  eagerness  with  which  she 
turned  over  the  wardrobe  finery,  furnished  in  great 


NEW  year's  day.  337 

abundance  as  the  sort  of  gift  most  suited  to  her 
capacity  of  appreciation,  furnish  admirable  ilhis- 
trations  of  her  mind.  She  is  said  to  have  taken 
good  care  that  her  returns  should  leave  a  very 
substantial  balance  in  her  own  favor.  The  practice 
is  stated  to  have  been  extinguished  in  the  reign  of 
George  III. 

A  worse  custom  still,  however,  was  that  of  pre- 
senting gifts  to  the  Chancellor  by  suitors  in  his 
court,  for  the  purpose  of  influencing  his  judgments. 
The  abuses  of  the  New-Year's-gift  practice  have, 
however,  been  cleared  away,  and  have  left  it  what 
it  now  is,  —  a  beautiful  form  for  the  interchanges 
of  affection  and  the  expression  of  friendship. 

In  Paris,  where  this  day  is  called  the  "Jour 
d'Etrennes,"  the  practice  is  of  still  more  universal 
observance  than  with  us,  and  the  streets  are  brilliant 
with  the  displays  made  in  every  window  of  the 
articles  which  are  to  furnish  these  tokens  of  kind- 
ness, and  with  the  gay  equipages  and  well-dressed 
pedestrians  passing  in  all  directions,  to  be  the 
bearers  of  them,  and  offer  the  compliments  which 
are  appropriate  to  the  season.  The  thousand  bells 
of  the  city  are  pealing  from  its  hundred  belfries, 
filling  the  air  with  an  indescribable  sense  of  festival, 
and  would  alone  set  the  whole  capital  in  motion 
if  they  were  a  people  that  ever  sat  still.  This 
singing  of  a  thousand  bells  is  likewise  a  striking 
feature  of  the  day  in  London ;  and  no  one  who 
has  not  heard  the  mingling  voices  of  these   high 


^^8  THE   BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

choristers  in  a  metropolis,  can  form  any  notion  of 
the  wild  and  stirring  effects  produced  by  the  racing 
and  crossing  and  mingling  of  their  myriad  notes. 
It  is  as  if  the  glad  voices  of  the  earth  had  a  chorus 
of  echoes  in  the  sky ;  as  if  the  spirit  of  its  rejoicing 
were  caught  up  by  "airy  tongues,"  and  flung  in  a 
cloud  of  incense-like  music  to  the  gates  of  heaven. 

We  need  scarcely  mention  that  most  of  the 
other  forms  in  which  the  mirth  of  the  season  ex- 
hibits itself,  are  in  demand  for  this  occasion ;  and 
that  among  the  merry  evenings  of  the  Christmas- 
tide,  not  the  least  merry  is  that  which  closes  New 
Year's  Day.  To  the  youngsters  of  society,  that  day 
and  eve  have  probably  been  the  most  trying  of  all ; 
and  the  strong  excitements  of  a  happy  spirit  drive 
the  weary  head  to  an  earlier  pillow  than  the  young 
heart  of  this  season  at  all  approves.  But  his  is  the 
weariness  that  the  sweet  sleep  of  youth  so  surely 
recruits ;  and  to-morrow  shall  see  him  early  afoot, 
once  more  engaged  in  those  winter  amusements 
which  are  to  form  his  resource  till  the  novelties  of 
Twelfth-day  arrive. 

"  There  will  come  an  eve  to  a  longer  day, 
That  will  find  thee  tired  —  but  not  of  play ; 
And  thou  wilt  lean  as  thou  leanest  now, 
With  drooping  limbs  and  an  aching  brow ; 
And  wish  the  shadows  would  faster  creep, 
And  long  to  go  to  thy  quiet  sleep  !  — 
Well  were  it  then  if  thine  aching  brow 
Were  as  free  from  sin  and  shame  as  now  !  " 


Let  not  amaa  be  seen  here. 

Who  unurged  v^^ilLnoL  djiak 

To  the  base  from  tJ-ie  trirjlf., 

A  tealxh  to  Ae  Kmg ' 

Heirick. 


TWELFTH  DAY  AND  TWELFTH  NIGHT. 

6th  January. 


Twelfth-day  (so  called  from  its  being  ihe 
twelfth  after  Christmas  Day)  is  that  on  which  the 
festival  of  the  Epiphany  is  held.  This  feast  of  the 
Christian  Church  was  instituted,  according  to  Picart, 
in  the  fourth  century,  to  commemorate  the  manifes- 
tation of  our  Saviour  to  the  Gentiles  ;  and  the  name 
Epiphany  ('ETrt^aveta),  which  signifies  an  appear- 
ance from  above,  was  given  to  it  in  allusion  to  the 
star  described  in  Holy  writ,  as  the  guide  of  the 
Magi  or  Wise  Men  to  the  cradle  of  the  Blessed 
Infant.  "  In  Italy,"  says  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt,  "  the 
word  has  been  corrupted  into  Beffania  or  Beffana, 
as  in  England  it  used  to  be  called  Piffany;  and 
Beffana  in  some  parts  of  that  country  has  come 
to  mean  an  old  fairy  or  Mother  Bunch,  whose  fig- 
ure is  carried  about  the  streets,  and  who  rewards 
or  punishes  children  at  night,  by  putting  sweet- 
meats or  stones  and  dirt  into  a  stocking  hung  up 
for  the  purpose,  near  the  bed's  head.  The  word 
*  Beffa,'  taken  from  this,  familiarly  means  a  trick 
or  mockery  put  upon  any  one ;  to  such  base  uses 


340  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

may  come  the  most  splendid  terms  !  "  But  what  is 
quite  as  extraordinary  as  that  the  priniitive  significa- 
tion of  a  word  not  familiarly  understood  should, 
amid  the  revolutions  of  centuries,  be  lost  in  a  dif- 
ferent or  distorted  into  an  inferior  meaning,  is  the 
preservation  in  popular  rites  of  trivial  details, 
which,  as  we  have  before  stated,  conclusively  iden- 
tify many  of  the  practices  of  our  modern  Christian 
festivals  as  echoes  of  ancient  pagan  observances. 
Of  this,  Twelfth-day  presents  a  remarkable  instance. 
The  more  we  examine  the  Saturnalia  of  the 
Romans  and  compare  those  revels  with  the  pro- 
ceedings of  our  Twelfth-night,  the  more  satisfied 
do  we  feel  of  the  correctness  of  Selden's  view. 
"  Christmas,"  he  says,  in  his  "  Table  Talk,"  "  suc- 
ceeds the  Saturnalia  ;  the  same  time,  the  same  num- 
ber of  holy-days.  Then  the  master  waited  upon  the 
servants,  like  the  Lord  of  Misrule."  There  is  here 
a  general  likeness  to  the  season  of  which  we  treat ; 
but,  as  Mr.  Brand  further  states,  the  Greeks  and 
Romans  at  this  period  also  "  drew  lots  for  king- 
doms, and  like  kings  exercised  their  temporary 
authority ; "  and  Mr.  Fosbroke  mentions  that  "  the 
king  of  Saturnalia  was  elected  by  beans,"  which 
identifies  our  Twelfth-night  characters,  as  well  as 
our  mode  of  selecting  them,  with  those  of  the  an- 
cients. Through  so  many  centuries  has  chance 
decided  who  should  wear  a  crown  !  By  the 
French  Twelfth-day  was  distinguished  as  "  La  Fete 
des  Rois,"  a  name  of  course  obnoxious  to  the  rev- 


TWELFTH    DAY   AND   TWELFTH    NIGHT.        34 1 

olutionary  fraternity  of  1792,  who  caused  such 
feast  to  be  declared  anti-civic,  and  replaced  it  by 
"  La   Fete  des  Sans-Culottes." 

However,  before  entering  upon  the  important  dis- 
cussion of  the  "  absolute  monarchy  "  of  "  the  king 
of  cakes  and  characters,"  in  which,  without  any 
reference  to  profane  ceremonies,  there  was  suffi- 
cient found  to  offend  puritanical  ideas,  we  must  be 
allowed  to  mention  some  customs  observed  on  the 
vigil  or  eve  of  the  feast  of  the  Epiphany.  Amongst 
these  was  the  practice  of  wassailing  the  trees  to  en- 
sure their  future  fruitfulness,  mentioned  by  Her- 
rick :  — 

"  Wassail  the  trees,  that  they  may  beare 
You  many  a  plum,  and  many  a  peare ; 
For  more  or  lesse  fruits  they  will  bring, 
As  you  do  give  them  wassailing." 

The  merry  bowl  which,  notwithstanding  that  it 
had  been  so  often  drained,  was  still  kept  brimming 
throughout  all  the  Christmas  holidays,  was  now 
when  they  were  drawing  to  a  close  actually  flowing 
over;  and  the  warm  heart  and  jovial  spirit  of  the 
season,  not  content  with  pledging  all  those  who 
could  drink  in  return,  proceeded  to  an  excess  of 
boon-companionship,  and  after  quaffing  a  wassail- 
draft  to  the  health  and  abundant  bearing  of  some 
favorite  fruit-tree,  poured  what  remained  in  the  cup 
upon  the  root,  as  a  libation  to  its  strength  and  vi- 
tality. Here,  also,  we  cannot  fail  to  recognize  the 
rites  of  classical  times  lurking  in  the  superstitions 


342  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

used  in  the  cider  districts  of  England.  A  pleasant 
custom  of  this  kind  is  mentioned  in  the  Gentle- 
man's Magazine  for  1791,  as  existing  in  certain 
parts  of  Devonshire.  It  is  there  stated  that  "  the 
farmer,  attended  by  his  workmen  with  a  large 
pitcher  of  cider,  goes  to  the  orchard  on  this  even- 
ing ;  and  there,  encircling  one  of  the  best  bearing 
trees,  they  drink  the  following  toast  three  times  :  — 

"  Here  's  to  thee,  old  apple-tree  ! 
Whence  thou  mayst  bud,  and  whence  thou  mayst  blow! 
And  whence  thou  mayst  bear  apples  enow  ! 

Hats  full !  caps  full ! 

Bushel,  bushel-sacks  full ! 
And  my  pockets  full  too  !  —  Huzza  !  " 

This  done  they  return  to  the  house,  the  doors  of 
which  they  are  sure  to  find  bolted  by  the  females, 
who,  be  the  weather  what  it  may,  are  inexorable  to 
all  entreatries  to  open  them  till  some  one  has 
guessed  at  what  is  on  the  spit,  which  is  generally 
some  nice  little  thing  difficult  to  be  hit  on,  and  is 
the  reward  of  him  who  first  names  it.  The  doors 
are  then  thrown  open ;  and  the  lucky  clodpole 
receives  the  titbit  as  a  recompense.  Some,  it  is 
added,  "are  so  superstitious  as  to  beUeve  that  if 
they  neglect  this  custom  the  trees  will  bear  no 
apples  that  year." 

'•  Health  to  thee,  good  apple-tree  ! 
Well  to  bear,  pockets  full,  hats  full, 
Pecks  full,  bushel-bags  full,"  — 


.^ 


TWELFTH    DAY    AND    TWELFTH    NIGHT.        343 

is  another  version  of  the  address  used  on  these  oc- 
casions, preserved  by  Brand.  We  find  recorded  in 
one  quarter  or  another  a  variety  of  analogous  and 
other  customs  observed  in  different  parts  of  Eng- 
land on  this  vigil ;  but  our  diminishing  space  will 
not  permit  us  to  enter  upon  a  description  of  them. 

To  illustrate  "Twelfth-night,"  our  artist  has  made 
two  studies  of  the  scenes  it  presents  in  London,  — 
abroad  and  at  home  ;  and  these  involve  our  con- 
sideration of  the  subject,  accordingly. 

During  the  entire  twelve  months  there  is  no  such 
illumination  of  pastry-cooks'  shops,  as  on  Twelfth- 
night.  Each  sends  forth  a  blaze  of  light ;  and  is 
filled  with  glorious  cakes,  "  decorated,''  to  use  the 
words  of  Mr.  Hone,  "with  all  imaginable  images  of 
thing  animate  and  inanimate.  Stars,  castles,  kings, 
cottages,  dragons,  trees,  fish,  palaces,  cats,  dogs, 
churches,  lions,  milkmaids,  knights,  serpents,  and 
innumerable  other  forms,  in  snow-white  confec- 
tionery, painted  with  variegated  colors."  "This 
'  paradise  of  dainty  devices,' "  he  continues,  "  is 
crowded  by  successive,  and  successful,  desirers  of 
the  seasonable  delicacies ;  while  alternate  tappings 
of  hammers  and  peals  of  laughter,  from  the  throng 
surrounding  the  house,  excite  smiles  from  the  in- 
mates." This  last  observation  requires  explanation, 
for  our  country  readers. 

Let  all  idle  gazers,  then,  in  the  streets  of  London 
beware  of  Twelfth-night !  There  is  then  that  spirit 
of  mischievous  fun  abroad,  which,  carried  on  with- 


344  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

out  the  superintending  power  of  a  Lord  of  Misrule, 
exhibits  itself  in  transfixing  the  coat-skirts  of  the 
unconscious  stranger  to  the  frame  'of  the  door  or 
window,  at  which  he  may  have  paused  to  stare  and 
wonder.  Once  fairly  caught,  lucky  is  the  wight 
who  can  disengage  himself,  without  finding  that,  in 
the  interim,  his  other  skirt  has  been  pinned  to  the 
pelisse  or  gown  of  some  alarmed  damsel,  whose 
dress  is  perhaps  dragged,  at  the  same  moment,  in 
opposite  directions,  so  that  he  can  neither  stand 
still  nor  move,  without  aiding  the  work  of  destruc- 
tion. These  practical  facetiae  are  the  perform- 
ances of  that  class  of  nondescript  lads,  "  perplex- 
ers  of  Lord  Mayors  and  irritators  of  the  police," 
whose  character  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt  has  as  truly  drawn 
as  our  artist  has  depicted  their  persons  :  "  those 
equivocal  animal-spirits  of  the  streets,  who  come 
whistling  along,  you  know  not  whether  thief  or 
errand-boy,  sometimes  with  a  bundle  and  some- 
times not,  in  corduroys,  a  jacket,  and  a  cap  or  bit 
of  hat,  with  hair  sticking  through  a  hole  in  it.  His 
vivacity  gets  him  into  scrapes  in  the  street ;  and  he 
is  not  ultra-studious  of  civility  in  his  answers.  If 
the  man  he  runs  against  is  not  very  big,  he  gives 
him  abuse  for  abuse,  at  once ;  if  otherwise,  he  gets 
at  a  convenient  distance,  and  then  halloos  out,  '  Eh, 
stupid  ! "  or  '  Can't  you  see  before  you  ? '  or  '  Go 
and  get  your  face  washed  ! '  This  last  is  a  favorite 
saying  of  his,  out  of  an  instinct  referable  to  his  own 
visage.     He  sings  "  Hokee-Pokee,'  and    '  A   shiny 


TWELFTH    DAY    AND    TWELFTH    NIGHT.         345 

Night,'  varied,  occasionally,  with  an  uproarious 
*  Rise,  gentle  Moon,'  or  '  Coming  through  the  Rye.' 
On  winter  evenings,  you  may  hear  him  indulging 
himself,  as  he  goes  along,  in  a  singular  undulation 
of  yowl,  a  sort  of  gargle,  as  if  a  wolf  was  prac- 
tising the  rudiments  of  a  shake.  This  he  delights 
to  do,  more  particularly  in  a  crowded  thorough- 
fare, as  though  determined  that  his  noise  should 
triumph  over  every  other  and  show  how  jolly  he  is, 
and  how  independent  of  the  ties  to  good  behavior. 
If  the  street  is  a  quiet  one,  and  he  has  a  stick  in 
his  hand  (perhaps  a  hoop-stick),  he  accompanies 
the  howl  with  a  run  upon  the  gamut  of  the  iron 
rails.  He  is  the  nightingale  of  mud  and  cold.  If 
he  gets  on  in  life,  he  will  be  a  pot-boy.  At  present, 
as  we  said  before,  we  hardly  know  what  he  is ; 
but  his  mother  thinks  herself  lucky  if  he  is  not 
transported." 

Of  Twelfth-night,  at  home,  when  "  the  whole 
island  keeps  court, — nay  all  Christendom,"  — 
when  "  all  the  world  are  kings  and  queens,  and 
everybody  is  somebody  else,"  a  huge  cake,  the  idol 
of  young  hearts,  is  the  presiding  genius  of  the 
evening.  The  account  given  by  Nutt,  the  editor 
of  the  "  Cook  and  Confectioner's  Dictionary,"  of 
the  twelfth-cakes  and  dishes  in  vogue  a  hundred 
years  ago,  proves  the  nursery  rhymes  of  — 

"  Four  and  twenty  blackbirds  baked  in  a  pye," 
who 

"  When  the  pye  was  opened  all  began  to  sing," 


346  THE    BOOK    OF   CHRISTMAS. 

to  be  no  such  nonsense  as  was  generally  supposed. 
He  tells  us  of  two  great  pies,  made  of  coarse  paste 
and  bran,  into  one  of  which,  after  it  was  baked, 
live  frogs  were  introduced,  and  into  the  other,  live 
birds ;  which,  upon  some  curious  persons  lifting  up 
the  covers,  would  jump  and  fly  about  the  room, 
causing  "  a  surprising  and  diverting  hurly-burly 
among  the  guests."  What  feeble  imitations  are  the 
castles,  ships,  and  animals  that  now  adorn  our 
Twelfth-night  cakes,  to  the  performances  of  Nutt ! 
How  much,  every  way,  inferior  are  the  specimens 
of  art  produced,  even  by  the  renowned  author  of 
the  "  Italian  Confectioner,"  the  illustrious  Jarrin  ! 
On  the  battlements  of  the  castles  of  former  days 
were  planted  "  kexes,"  or  pop-guns,  charged  with 
gunpowder,  to  be  fired  upon  a  pastry  ship,  with 
"  masts,"  ropes,  we  doubt  not  of  spun  sugar,  "  sails, 
flags,  and  streamers."  Nor  was  the  naval  power  of 
England  lost  sight  of;  for  the  "kexes"  of  this 
delicious  ship  were,  also,  charged  with  gunpowder, 
and,  when  she  was  fired  upon  from  the  castle,  her 
guns  were  able  to  return  the  salute.  Then,  to 
take  ofl"  the  smell  of  the  powder,  there  were  egg- 
shells, filled  with  rose-water,  for  the  spectators  to 
break,  "and  throw  at  one  another."  Nor  must  a 
stag  of  pastry  filled  with  claret  be  forgotten  ;  which, 
when  wounded,  poured  forth  its  blood,  free  and 
sparkling  as  a  ruby,  for  those  whose  nerves  were 
delicate  and  needed  the  refreshment  of  a  glass  of 
wine.     Such  were  the  '•  subtilties,"  as  these  jugglings 


TWELFTH    DAY    AND    TWELFTH    NIGHT.         347 

in  confectionery  are  called,  which  we  now  behold 
represented  by  the  painted  figures,  "  so  bad  to  eat, 
but  so  fine  to  look  at,"  that  adorn  our  twelfth- 
cakes. 

"  How  to  eat  twelfth-cake,"  says  Hone,  "  re- 
quires no  recipe ;  but  how  to  provide  it,  and  draw 
the  characters,  on  the  authority  of  Rachel  Revel's 
'  Winter  Evening  Pastimes,'  may  be  acceptable. 
First,  buy  your  cake.  Then,  before  your  visitors 
arrive,  buy  your  characters,  —  each  of  which  should 
have  a  pleasant  verse  beneath.  Next,  look  at  your 
invitation  list,  and  count  the  number  of  ladies  you 
expect,  and  afterwards  the  number  of  gentlemen. 
Then,  take  as  many  female  characters  as  you  have 
invited  ladies,  fold  them  up  exactly  of  the  same 
size,  and  number  each  on  the  back,  taking  care  to 
make  the  king  No.  i,  and  the  queen  No.  2.  Then 
prepare  and  number  the  gentlemen's  characters. 
Cause  tea  and  coffee  to  be  handed  to  your  visitors, 
as  they  drop  in.  When  all  are  assembled,  and  tea 
over,  put  as  many  ladies'  characters  in  a  reticule  as 
there  are  ladies  present ;  next,  put  the  gentlemen's 
characters  in  a  hat.  Then  call  on  a  gentleman  to 
carry  the  reticule  to  the  ladies  as  they  sit ;  from 
which  each  lady  is  to  draw  one  ticket,  and  to  pre- 
serve it  unopened.  Select  a  lady  to  bear  the  hat  to 
the  gentlemen  for  the  same  purpose.  There  will 
be  one  ticket  left  in  the  reticule,  and  another  in  the 
hat,  —  which  the  lady  and  gentleman  who  carried 
each   is   to  interchange,  as  having  fallen   to  each. 


348  THE    BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

Next,  arrange  your  visitors,  according  to  their  num- 
bers ;  the  king  No  i,  the  queen  No.  2,  and  so 
on.  The  king  is  then  to  recite  the  verse  on  his 
ticket,  then  the  queen  the  verse  on  hers ;  and  so 
the  characters  are  to  proceed,  in  numerical  order. 
This  done,  let  the  cake  and  refreshments  go  round ; 
and  hey  !  for  merriment  !  " 

As  our  contribution  towards  the  merriment  of 
this  evening,  we  cannot  do  better  than  present  our 
readers  with  a  copy  of  the  following  letter,  respect- 
ing the  manufacture  of  Twelfth-night  characters,  — 
which  document  was  handed  to  us  by  the  artist  to 
whom  it  was  addressed.  — 

*'  Sir,  —  As  I  am  given  to  understand  that  you  are 
an  artist  of  celebrity,  I  will  thank  you  to  make  me 
a  hundred  and  forty-four  different  characters,  for 
Twelfth-night,  the  entire  cost  not  to  exceed  two  shil- 
lings and  sixpence  each,  say  three  plates  at  two 
pounds  ten  shillings  a  plate,  including  the  poetry, 
which  you  can,  I  am  told,  get  plenty  of  poets  to  write 
for  nothing,  though  I  should  not  mind  standing  a 
trifle,  —  say  twopence  more,  if  the  verses  gave  satis- 
faction. You  will  please  do  your  best  for  me,  and, 
trusting  to  your  speedy  attention  to  this  order,  I  re- 
main your  well-wisher  and  obedient  servant,  who  will 
furnish  the  coppers." 

Though  we  publish  this  letter,  that  is  no  reason 
why  we  should  publish  the  writer's  name.  It  is  evi- 
dent he  was  a  young  hand  in  the  trade,  and  de- 
sirous to  rival  the  graphic  and  literary  talent  dis- 


TWELFTH    DAY    AND   TWELFTH    NIGHT.        349 

played  in  Langley's  and  Fairburn's  characters,  —  of 
which  we  have  preserved  specimens  in  our  port- 
folio. Mr.  Sandys  speaks  rather  disparagingly  of 
the  merit  of  these  productions,  and  this,  considering 
that  gentleman's  antiquarian  zeal,  we  must  confess, 
surprises  us.  In  the  copy  of  Langley's  characters 
which  we  possess,  the  same  love  of  alliteration,  upon 
which  we  have  already  commented  as  encouraged 
in  the  Court  of  Misrule,  is  observable.  We  have, 
for  instance,  "  Bill  Bobstay,"  "  Prudence  Pumpkin," 
"  Percival  Palette,"  "Judy  Juniper,''  "  Peter  Punch- 
eon," "  Simon  Salamander,"  "  Countess  Clackett," 
"  Leander  Lackbrain,"  "  Nelly  Nester,"  "  Felicia 
Frill,"  etc. 

Where  the  monarch  of  the  evening  and  his 
queen  are  not  determined  by  this  kind  of  pictorial 
lottery,  a  bean  and  a  pea  are  put  into  the  cake  ; 
and  whoever  finds  them  in  the  pieces  taken,  he  and 
she  become  the  king  and  queen  of  the  evening. 
Other  matters,  such  as  a  small  coin,  a  ring,  etc.,  are 
often  introduced  into  Twelfth-night  cakes,  and  give 
to  the  finders  characters  to  be  supported  for  the 
evening.  In  some  countries,  says  Sandys,  a  coin 
was  put  "  instead  of  the  bean,  and  portions  of  the 
cake  assigned  to  the  Virgin  Mary  and  the  Three 
Kings,  which  were  given  to  the  poor;  and  if  the 
bean  should  happen  to  be  in  any  of  these  portions, 
the  king  was  then  chosen  by  pullmg  straws." 

The  three  kings  mentioned  in  the  above  extract 
are  those  worthies  commonly  known  by  the  title  of 


350  THE   BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS 

the  Three  Kings  of  Colen  (Cologne),  identified  by 
old  legends  with  the  Wise  Men  of  the  East,  who  did 
homage  to  our  Saviour  on  the  day  of  which  the 
Epiphany  is  the  anniversary  celebration.  They  are 
stated  to  have  been  Arabians  ;  and  are  distinguished 
in  the  traditionary  tales  of  the  Early  Church  by  the 
names  of  Melchior,  Balthazar,  and  Gasper.  Their 
bodies  are  said  to  have  been  finally  deposited  at 
Cologne,  after  several  removals ;  and  the  practice 
of  electing  a  king  on  the  evening  of  the  Epiphany 
has  been,  by  some,  thought  to  have  a  reference  to 
their  supposed  regal  characters.  We  imagine,  how- 
ever, it  will  be  sufficiently  evident  to  our  readers, 
after  what  we  have  formerly  said,  that  it  is  not 
necessary  for  us  to  seek  further  than  we  have  al- 
ready done  for  the  origin  of  the  Twelfth-night  king. 


SAINT   DISTAFF'S   DAY. 

7TH  January. 


CONCLUSION. 

The  day  which  precedes  this  is,  as  we  have  al- 
ready informed  our  readers,  the  last  of  the  twelve 
days  which  constitute  what  is  emphatically  the 
Christmas  season ;  and  with  the  revelries  of 
Twelfth-night  the  general  hoUday  is  in  strictness 
considered  to  be  at  an  end.  As  however  we  found 
it  necessary  to  approach  the  throng  of  its  celebra- 
tions with  some  degree  of  preparation,  — -  to  pass 
through  some  of  its  lighted  antechambers,  before 
we  ventured  to  trust  our  eyes  amid  the  blaze  of  the 
temple  itself,  —  so  also  we  dare  not  step  at  once  from 
its  thousand  lights  into  the  common  air  of  the  every- 
day world  without  a  previous  subjecting  of  our 
imaginations  to  the  diminished  glare  of  the  outer 
chambers  which  lie  on  this  other  side.  And  this 
it  is  the  more  incumbent  on  us  to  do,  because  the 
revellers  whose  proceedings  it  is  our  business  to 
describe  take  the  same  course  in  returning  to  the 
business  of  life. 


352  THE    BOOK    OF    CHRISTMAS. 

It  is  not,  as  we  have  said,  to  be  expected  that 
after  the  full  chorus  of  increased  mirth  which  hath 
swelled  up  anew  for  the  last  of  these  celebrations, 
the  ear  should  all  at  once  accustom  itself  to  a  sud- 
den and  utter  silence,  —  should  endure  the  abrupt 
absence  of  all  festival  sound ;  nor  can  all  the  laugh- 
ing spirits  of  the  season  who  were  engaged  in  added 
numbers  for  the  revelries  of  last  night,  be  got  quiet- 
ly laid  at  rest  in  the  course  of  a  single  day.  One 
or  other  of  them  is  accordingly  found  lurking 
about  the  corners  of  our  chambers  after  the  cere- 
monies for  which  they  were  called  up  are  over, 
encouraged  to  the  neglect  of  the  order  for  their 
dismissal  by  the  young  hearts,  who  have  formed 
a  merry  alliance  with  the  imps  which  they  are  by 
no  means  willing  to  terminate  thus  suddenly.  And 
sooth  to  say,  those  youngsters  are  often  able  to 
engage  heads  who  are  older,  and  we  suppose 
should  know  better,  in  the  conspiracies  which  are 
day  by  day  formed  for  the  detention  of  some  one 
or  more  of  these  members  of  the  train  of  Momus. 

Even  in  rural  districts,  where  the  necessary  prep- 
arations in  aid  of  the  returning  season  are  by  this 
time  expected  to  call  men  abroad  to  the  labors  of 
the  field,  our  benevolent  ancestors  admitted  the 
claim  for  a  gradual  subsiding  of  the  Christmas 
mirth  in  favor  of  the  children  of  toil.  Their  de- 
vices for  letting  themselves  gently  down  were  rec- 
ognized ;  and  a  sort  of  compromise  was  sanctioned 
between    the    spirit   of  the   past   holiday  and   the 


ST.  distaff's  day.  353 

sense  of  an  important  coming  duty  to  be  per- 
formed. The  genius  of  mirth  met  the  genius  of 
toil  on  neutral  ground  for  a  single  day;  and  the 
two  touched  hands  in  recognition  of  the  rightful 
dominion  of  each  other,  ere  they  severally  set 
forth   in  their  own  separate  directions. 

Thus,  on  the  day  which  followed  Twelfth-night, 
the  implements  of  labor  were  prepared  and  the 
team  was  even  yoked  for  a  space ;  but  the  busi- 
ness of  turning  the  soil  was  not  required  to  be 
laboriously  engaged  in  until  the  Monday  which 
followed,  and  which  therefore  bore  (and  bears)  the 
title  of  Plough  Monday.  After  a  few  hours  of 
morning  labor,  a  sort  of  half-holiday  was  the  con- 
cluding privilege  of  this  privileged  season ;  and 
the  husbandman  laid  aside  his  plough,  and  the 
maiden  her  distaff,  to  engage  in  certain  revels 
which  were  peculiar  to  the  day  and  to  the  country 
districts.  From  the  partial  resumption  of  the  spin- 
ning labors  of  the  women  on  this  morning,  the 
festival  in  question  takes  its  name  ;  and  it  is  (or 
was)  sometimes  called  also  "  Rockday,"  in  honor 
of  the  rock,  which  is  another  name  for  the  distaff. 
It  is  described  as  being  "  a  distaff  held  in  the  hand, 
from  whence  wool  is  spun  by  twirling  a  ball  below." 

Of  the  sports  by  which  this  day  was  enlivened 
we  doubt  if  there  are  any  remains.  These  seem 
to  have  consisted  in  the  burning,  by  the  men  who 
had  returned  from  the  field,  of  the  flax  and  tow 
belonging  to  the  women,  as  a  sort  of  assertion  of 
23 


354  THE    BOOK   OF    CHRISTMAS. 

the  supremacy  of  the  spirit  of  fun  over  his  laborious 
rival  for  this  one  day  more,  and  a  challenge  into 
his  court ;  and  this  challenge  was  answered  by  the 
maidens,  and  the  mischief  retorted,  by  sluicing  the 
clowns  with  pails  of  water.  It  was,  in  fact,  a  merry 
contest  between  these  two  elements  of  water  and  of 
fire  ;  and  may  be  looked  upon  as  typical  of  that 
more  matter-of-fact  extinction  which  was  about  to 
be  finally  given  to  the  lights  of  the  season  when 
the  sports  of  this  day  should  be  concluded.  Of 
these  merry  proceedings  our  artist  has  given  a 
very  lively  representation ;  and  Herrick's  poem  on 
the  subject,  which  we  must  quote  from  the  "  Hes- 
perides,"  includes  all  that  is  known  of  the  ancient 
observances  of  St.  Distaffs  day. 

"  Partly  work  and  partly  play, 
You  must  on  S.  Distaff's  day; 
From  the  plough  soone  free  your  teame, 
Then  come  home  and  fother  them, 
If  the  maides  a  spinning  goe, 
Burne  the  flax,  and  fire  the  tow  ; 

Bring  in  pailes  of  water  then, 

Let  the  maides  bewash  the  men  :  — 

Give  S.  Distaffe  all  the  right, 

Then  bid  Christmas  sport  good-night : 

And  next  morrow,  every  one 

To  his  own  vocation." 


ST.  distaff's  day.  355 

Our  Revels  now  are  ended  ;  and  our  Christ- 
mas prince  must  abdicate.  In  flinging  down  his 
wand  of  misrule,  we  trust  there  is  no  reason  why 
he  should,  like  Prospero,  when  his  charms  were 
over  and  he  broke  his  staff,  drown  this,  his  book, 
"deeper  than  did  ever  plummet  sound."  The 
spells  which  it  contains  are,  we  believe,  all  inno- 
cent ;  and,  we  trust,  it  may  survive  to  furnish  the 
directions  for  many  a  future  scheme  of  Christmas 
happiness. 

And  now  Father  Christmas  has  at  length  de- 
parted, —  but  not  till  the  youngsters  had  got 
from  the  merry  old  man  his  last  bon-bo?i.  The 
school-boy,  too,  has  clung  to  the  skirts  of  the 
patriarch's  coat,  and  followed  him  as  far  as  he 
could.  And  farther  had  he  gone,  but  for  a  clear 
and  undoubted  vision  of  a  dark  object,  which  has 
been  looming  suspiciously  through  the  gloom,  for 
some  weeks  past.  He  first  caught  a  glimpse  of  it, 
on  stepping  out  from  amongst  the  lights  of  Twelfth- 
night  ;  but  he  turned  his  head  resolutely  away, 
and  has  since  looked  as  little  in  that  direction  as 
he  could.  But  there  is  no  evading  it  now  !  There 
it  stands,  right  in  his  way,  plain  and  distinct  and 
i;)ortentous  !  the  gloomy  portal  of  this  merry  sea- 
son, on  whose  face  is  inscribed,  in  characters 
which  there  is  no  mystifying,  its  own  appropriate 
and  unbeloved  name,  —  Black  Monday  ! 

And,  behold  !  at  the  gloomy  gate  a  hackney 
coach  !  (more  like    a  mourning  coach  ! )  —  Black 


^^6  THE    BOOK   OF   CHRISTMAS. 

Monday,  visible  in  all  its  appointments,  and  black 
Friday,  looking  blacker  than  ever,  this  black  Mon- 
day, frowning  from  its  foot-board  ! 

And  lo  !  through  its  windows,  just  caught  in  the 
distance,  the  last  flutter  of  the  coat-tails  of  old 
Father  Christmas  I  — 

Our  Revels  are,  indeed,  ended  ! 


THE   END. 


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8  Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers'' 

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Standard  Library  Books.  9 


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